Monday, April 20, 2020
701 - Humble New Beginnings
Spirituality Column #701
April 21, 2020
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Humble New Beginnings
By Bob Walters
“… because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming
to you.” – Luke 19:41
Jesus very famously wept quietly at the tomb of Lazarus – “Jesus
wept” – but He absolutely howled as He entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
Jesus "weeps" twice in the Bible – tenderly (Greek edakrysen,
John 11:35) for Lazarus’s sisters’ sadness, and a second time loudly (Greek eklausen,
Luke 19:41), “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.”
While we could spend this entire column discussing how
deeply Jesus was moved – and somewhat miffed – at the reactions of Lazarus’
family and friends before Jesus brought Lazarus out of the tomb, that’s a
common story we’ve all studied before.
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” (John 11:25). And He meant it.
Bible scholars mostly agree that “Palm Sunday” was a few
days later on the first day of the following week when Jesus rode a donkey into
Jerusalem to the palm-waving Hosannas of all the believers who knew of Lazarus
and had heard of Jesus’s many miracles. They welcomed him to Jerusalem as their
holy and promised Messiah.
The Pharisees were not so thrilled. As Jesus approached (Luke 37-44) the crowd joyously
praised but the Pharisees viciously harangued: “Teacher, rebuke your
disciples!” (v. 39). Jesus noted that if
his disciples were quiet, then the “stones would cry out.” (v. 40). Seeing the unbelief of the Pharisees and their
blindness toward God, Jesus knew it meant Jerusalem’s eventual destruction. He wept bitterly because of it.
Clearly nobody except Jesus had any idea what the rest of
that week held, or how history after that would be forever changed. The reality was, Jesus on that donkey was God
returning to Jerusalem – as God told Abraham, Moses, and the prophets He would
– to initiate His Kingdom on Earth. It’s
what Jesus had been saying all along.
What the Pharisees saw – in their blindness and anger – was
a troublemaking blasphemer who would pull down their temple, negate their
authority, threaten their social positions, and not least of all threaten Jerusalem’s
tenuous peace with the Romans. The
Pharisees “did not recognize the time of God’s coming.” (v. 41)
Something else they didn’t perceive, and I’d never thought
of either, was looking at what we call Holy Week as a perfect, poetic replay of
the Creation story in Genesis.
It was just a brief note in N.T. Wright’s The New
Testament in Its World I’m reading, but, Lord of lords, how poignant. In
Genesis 1, God labored for six days, rested a day, and His perfect Creation was
in motion. Jesus here spent six days in
Jerusalem (Sunday to Friday), finishing his work of salvation, service,
obedience, and love on the cross on Friday – the sixth day – and in his death
rested on the seventh day Saturday.
Right here, let’s not worry too much whether on that “Holy
Saturday” Jesus descended into Hades, battled Satan, freed the saints, or
whatever else He might have done; there is only thin and much debated
scriptural evidence for that. What we
know is that on the cross Jesus said, “It is finished.” On the seventh day, why not let him rest?
Jesus’s resurrection on the first day of a new week was
breathtaking and glorious for those who believed. It signaled the new beginning of humanity’s
eternal life in God’s Kingdom through the humility of the cross of Christ.
Creation, humbly, was renewed.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com)
looked up the Greek for “wept” at Biblehub.com.
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