Holy Week - Wednesday

Passion Week - Wednesday

As we continue following Jesus' final week on earth, we have now reached Wednesday. The Bible does not give us a clearly depicted layout of the chronology of Jesus’ life, including the Passion Week. As scholars have done their in depth research, there is only one thing that they are confident happened on Wednesday. That one small event that only takes up two verses in Matthew 26 impacts the next 96 (ish) hours of Jesus’s life and eventually leads to the world being changed.

One of the points of emphasis in the Passion Week is on the suffering and torture that Jesus endured on our behalf. As the church, we have a tendency to focus only on His physical pain, but some could argue that Jesus endured more emotional and mental pain than physical pain. During the final week of Jesus' life, he faced a lot of betrayal.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode on a donkey, entering the city. There were hundreds of people in the streets laying their coats down on the road, shouting “Hosanna, Hail to the King.” It was those same people that were shouting “Crucify Him, Crucify Him” only a few days later. All of his fans quickly turned their backs on Him, but that may not have been his most painful betrayal that he faced this week.

We find that betrayal in Matthew 26:14-16, “14 Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests 15 and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. 16 From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.”

Judas was one the twelve disciples and a close companion of Jesus. He spent the last three years of his life following Jesus, learning from the teachings of Jesus. For about $500 (30 pieces of silver), Judas sold out Jesus to the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees. It was those people that then handed him over to the Romans, the experts of suffering and torture. Most of us can probably imagine the grief that comes with a betrayal from a trusted companion. Many of us are living with that grief right now. The emotional suffering that Jesus endured was not just betrayal by his religious leaders, fans, and friends.

While in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was sweating blood because he was distraught knowing what was about to happen to him. He prayed to the Father for another way for this to be accomplished, but even when Jesus felt the most alone, He still chose the will of God over his own desires. He was distraught not just about the physical pain of torture, but knowing that God would have to turn his back on Jesus while he was hanging on the cross. God turned his back on Jesus because God is holy and can not be associated with sin and guilt. Jesus, bearing the sins of the world, past, present, and future, had to endure it completely alone. This was the suffering of his mind: betrayal, loneliness, mockery, and shame. He suffered a punishment that was intended for the worst of people. The Scriptures tell us that he was spit upon and mocked. They berated him by requoting Jesus’ most controversial statements. Isaiah 53 is one of the “Suffering Servant” passages that foretell all that the Messiah would have to endure.

Isaiah 53:3-5, “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

It is by the physical and emotional suffering of Jesus that we can be redeemed. As Christians, we have a tendency to be insensitive and nonchalant about Jesus' pain, suffering, and death. We hear/read so often about what Jesus' death and suffering did for our eternities that we become numb to it.

I hope that as we continue reflecting on the final days of Jesus' life, that we do not overlook the physical and emotional suffering that our Lord and Savior endured.