Reaching Toward Easter. Derek Maul

down the road there’s also the chance that following Jesus will eventually lead to some kind of cross. Today, think about what that may mean. And let’s add commitment to our intention and so be on our way.

      Prayer: Creator of all life, help us to set our sights and our intentions clearly on Jerusalem. Accompany us on our journey. Feed our souls. Grant us the strength to follow you no matter where the road leads. Amen.

      Day Four: Friday

      GOING OVER THE HIGHLIGHTS ONE MORE TIME

      Read John 13:1-20.

      Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand” (v. 7).

      Sometimes the crowds surrounding Jesus were dense; very often his closest friends were fairly dense too. Same word, entirely different meaning.

      Most evenings when our children were growing up, my wife and I would pepper our family dinner time conversation with questions. We found that to be a great way to coax ideas and opinions and honesty from the children, especially when they were teens. The practice worked so well that quite often I still go to dinner with friends or family armed with two or three guaranteed conversation starters in my hip-pocket, just in case.

      Jesus was well known for doing the same kind of thing with his friends. His most frequent and telling questions went like this:

      “Do you not understand?”

      “Have you not seen and heard?”

      “Don’t you get it?”

      “Are you not a student of the law?”

      “Didn’t your mother teach you anything . . . ?”

      Not really, I made that one up! But the Gospel writers did often include phrases like, “And Jesus wondered at their lack of understanding” (see Matt. 15:16 and Mark 7:18).

      Yet Jesus persisted. The great Teacher taught, rephrased, told parables, and lived by example. But his style of teaching was so foreign, so radical and so personal, to the way they were used to considering God. It was an approach markedly unusual in a harsh world where life was often dirt-cheap and the last thing anyone expected of a deity was compassion.

      Many of them were, after all, looking for a political Messiah who would smash Rome into tiny pieces and establish a tangible kingdom of raw power. But instead, here was Jesus, walking on the water, turning water into wine, calming the storm, caring for children, touching lepers, and speaking with—of all the nerve—outcasts and women.

      “The kingdom of God is like,” he would say, and go on to startle his friends and followers with a story about a grain of seed, a lost sheep, or a merchant. And Jesus cared passionately for individuals. “Not even one common sparrow falls to the ground,” he told anyone who was willing to listen, “without it mattering to God” (Matt. 10:29, author paraphrase).

      Jesus got up from the table in Bethany, where he had been comfortable and loved and cared for, and made his way along the dusty road toward his irreversible fate in Jerusalem.

      NON SEQUITUR

      And so the ragtag band of Jesus-people entered the Holy City, triumphant at last and with their leader perched on the back of a borrowed donkey. It was an obvious sign of intent and a visible declaration of peace.

      But Jesus failed to capitalize on the parade—at least in the way his friends expected. He refused to pander to the mob, chose not to incite a riot, and sidestepped the temptation to overpower the resident authority and claim an earthly throne, a kingdom locked into time and space. Instead he took his disciples aside for one last meal together, broke bread with them, and again dropped the bombshell that he was going to die. “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand” (John 13:7, NIV).

      “Excuse me?” his friends must have said. “Would you run that by us again? We were just getting used to the servant stuff, and we really liked the whole Triumphal Entry thing. But now you say, ‘This is my body, broken for you’? ‘This is my blood—as often as you drink it’?”

      “So listen already,” Jesus must have said, “while I go over the highlights one more time.”

      THIS WILL BE OUR STUDY

      And this will be our study during these next crucial weeks leading up to Easter, to go over the highlights one more time. We’ll be using the Gospel of John, chapters 12–20 as our guide, but we’ll sample some from the other narratives as we fill in a few more of the details.

      Most importantly, we’ll be doing it with Jesus, with all those original Jesus-followers, and with the last words Jesus offered—one more time—at the Last Supper.

      Write the prayer below on a card and carry it with you today as a reminder of this commitment to learn and grow during this Lenten season.

      Prayer: Bless us, Great Creator, with hearts open to hear your radical and compelling message. Teach us through these forty-plus days. Fill us with your Spirit. Guide us into a greater understanding of your radical love. Amen.

      Day Five: Saturday

      The Key Word Is Forgiveness

      Read John 13:18-30.

      After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me” (v. 21).

      I can imagine the scene: the casual glances around the room, the shifts in posture, the sideways looks, and the sense of affront elicited by a well-

       honed truth.

      And I know that look, the one the disciples give Jesus when he calls them out. I used to teach middle school and, believe me, I know. It’s the same look a thirteen-year-old boy will give when you stop him on his way to doing something inappropriate, and he simply can’t fathom how in the universe his teacher can read his mind so clearly. So he employs the only strategy he knows—denial.

      “Not me, Lord; no how, no way. . . .” I can see them, twelve guys nervously fidgeting in their seats, ready to finger one of their friends. Because they all know that they are capable, they all know that betrayal had already happened in so many ways, and they are all wondering if Jesus had really figured them out.

      Well, they need not have worried. One of the great things about Jesus is that he does figure us out. That kind of realization takes the pressure off, really. There’s comfort in the understanding that we can’t fool God any more than we can fool ourselves.

      Remember how the Teacher pointed out that the truth has the power to set each one of us free (John 8:32)? It’s a principle that sets up the imperative for honesty and allows you—in fact requires you—to take things from there.

      CONFESSION

      Why do you think that confession forms such an important element in traditional worship? Because confession clears the air so well and gives us a chance to acknowledge on our own volition the truth that God already knows:

      Yes, I’ve messed up.

      Yes, I confess that I have and always will come up short of God’s best.

      Yes, I know that I need forgiveness—and in so many ways.

      I remember one particular life-changing New Year’s resolution that I made one optimistic