Luke 21:37-38 Jesus' daily routine.
Jesus had quite a following - people coming daily to the Temple to listen to
Him teach, but the cost of this routine was that He spent all night on the
Mount of Olives. Whether these all-night prayer sessions were to empower Him to
convey truth during His teaching, or prepare Him for the coming trials, or
both, is probably not important. It makes clear that even Jesus, the Son of
God, God incarnate in the flesh, depended on very long prayer sessions and
communion with His Father in order to minister effectively and carry out the
Father's will.
Luke 22:1-6 Judas makes preparation
to betray Jesus. Parallel passages Matt 26:3-5, Mark 14:-2, John 13:2. The
chief priests and scribes wanted to get rid of Jesus because they feared the
people. But Satan entered into Judas. We have another occasion to puzzle over
how much the choice to do evil is the result of individual free will vs.
spiritual influences. In Exodus we find that on some occasions Pharaoh hardened
his heart (Exodus 8:15, 8:32, 9:34, ), and on other occasions God hardened
Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 4:21, 7:3,
9:12, 10:1, 10:20, 10:27, 11:10, 14:4,
14:8), but the bottom line was that God raised him up to glorify Himself.
(Romans 9:17, Paul quoting Exodus 9:16).
So
was Judas a self-motivated traitor, or was he a victim of Satan? In Acts
1:15-19, Peter reflects that Judas fulfilled a promise of Scripture (Psalm
41:9), and then Luke adds parenthetically what happened to Judas after he
betrayed Jesus. The classic tension between God's sovereign will and our free will
is not easily resolved, or else there would not be the long-lasting tension
between Calvinism and Arminianism. It is difficult to explain concisely how our
choices open the door to God or Satan based on our decisions and actions. Yet
it is clear throughout Scripture that this is the case. So Judas bears the
responsibility for his choices, although he was abetted and empowered by Satan
in the end. His first few choices were free. And that is a parable for all
vices. We start out with free choice but end up enslaved by those vices we
chose freely. (cf John 8:34, Romans 6:16-20)
Luke 22:7-13 Jesus' disciples prepare
the Passover. (Parallel passages Matt 26:17-19, Mark 14:12-16). It is not clear
from the passage whether Jesus' instructions are supernatural provision or if
He had somehow pre-arranged all this. The man that the disciples meet is never
further discussed. Yet he had prepared a room and presumably some of the other
accouterments required to celebrate the Passover. This could have included several
specific items of food such as unleavened bread, wine, lamb, karpas, maror,
charoset, and eggs, as well as candles.
Perhaps the disciples' preparation was to procure these items. Lots of
details are omitted. Perhaps these details are unimportant. It is clear,
however, that Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Passover in accordance
with Jewish custom and tradition, except.... Except that according to John
19:31, Jesus was crucified and the Jews asked that His legs be broken so that
He would die before sunset because that sunset marked the beginning of the high
holy day, presumably the Passover. So Jesus and His disciples had celebrated
the Passover on the day before the high holy day. And as we shall see, in His celebration of
the Last Supper, Jesus departed from Jewish custom to demonstrate that He was
the fulfillment of all that was symbolized and to establish the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper.
No comments:
Post a Comment