March 28, 2024 • 40 mins
In this profound episode, we guide listeners through the climactic events taking place around Jesus' journey from the Mount of Olives to the temple, painting a vivid picture of the paradoxical nature of Palm Sunday. The excitement of the awaiting crowd, their subsequent disappointment, and their inability to envision exactly how the prophecied Messiah would deliver their salvation, all signal missed understanding and anticipate the coming somber events. This exploration invokes a call for churchgoers to appreciate and understand these interconnected events - Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter - as a continuous, impactful narrative.
Peter's Journey: Denial, Resurrection, TransformationDive into a captivating exploration of Peter the Apostle's faith journey in this episode. By meticulously examining passages from the Gospels, we unravel Peter's struggles and misconceptions about God's redemptive plan, culminating in his infamous denial of Jesus. The subsequent shock of the resurrected Christ presentation serves as a transformative moment in Peter's life. We suggest that faith, despite uncertainties and sporadic disobedience, remains an enduring venture towards learning, growth, and unwavering allegiance to Christ's divine plan. Join us as we deconstruct Peter's journey and draw parallel to our spiritual growth.
Revelatory Encounter: A Resurrected Christ and a Transformed PeterIn this enlightening episode, we delve into the impactful moment when Peter, one of Jesus' closest disciples, experiences the shocking revelation of seeing his resurrected Lord. This disbelief-shattering encounter, coupled with Peter's ultimate realization of his misplaced brashness, underscores the transformative power of such profound experiences. We scrutinize the pivotal scene of Peter professing his love to Jesus, shifting our focus to Jesus's redeeming responses rather than Peter's assertions. This examination concludes with a reflection on our spiritual path, emphasizing the importance of humility and daily connection with the divine.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives with his friends.
In a moment, he would send them
over the hill to Bethany and Bethpage to fetch a donkey or a young colt.
As he looked back over from the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley towards
(00:23):
the temple, Smoke rose from the endless animal sacrifices.
He could see or sense the blood flowing from the sacrificial altars,
the tables of preparation.
The expert butchers who were also the Levite priests, skilled at their work,
(00:49):
but accustomed to blood.
Streams of blood run through channels in the stone floor of the tabernacle,
basins, and places of preparation outside the temple.
Just a little distant from the place where the death and the dying is making
(01:13):
atonement for the living, the very presence of God. But Jesus looked at all
of it. He could hear the city sounds.
He could hear the wind blowing through palm trees, sparse as they are in the Mount of Olives.
He waited as his friends returned with the colt.
And then he mounted up, his friends throwing their cloaks over the colt's back.
(01:37):
And they led him down the narrow lane to the bottom of the mountain across the Kidron Valley.
And as they came, people gathered along the lane, taking palm branches and laying
them on the rain before him, and even their coats and their wraps. Then they...
(02:02):
Through a gate that's closed now locked down
in the 1500s by Muslims and heard
one too many Christians declaring Jesus but
entered through that same gate and he would turn but this
day the gate is open and it is in fact the
same gate that the sheep of my group and the
various other animals prepared for sacrificial offering
(02:25):
it is the same gate that the shepherds go through to To bring those animals
around to the front of the tabernacle or the temple to be presented to the priests slash butchers.
There's smoke. There's the sound of sizzling, bleeding of all different kinds,
(02:52):
fearing for their lives in silence.
And there's sounds and smells and birth things.
Well, there's some late natural requirements for managing animals,
just very much like what we see outside of a slaughterhouse today.
(03:13):
All of it meant to atone for the sins of people of God. This is where Jesus was headed.
This is what he was doing. He was moving methodically.
Direction of the sacrifices, and nobody understood it the way he did.
Nobody knew what he was doing or why.
(03:34):
Some could guess that he was fulfilling prophecies about the coming of the Messiah
on a cult that had never been written before, some could recognize,
the similarity to their dreams and expectations, but he knew better.
He knew better. How ironic that the one who came to Bethlehem to be born in
(03:57):
a sheep pen where the sacrificial lambs for the temple were raised,
the one who was born there came on a donkey's back, albeit while he resided
in his mother's womb, and now he's back.
First time he came as a sheep to the slaughter was to be born in the slaughterhouse sheep pen.
(04:20):
The second time he comes, it is to fulfill the atonement through his blood,
through his pierced body.
He understood, but the rest of them just thought he was going to establish a new kingdom. him.
His friends were excited because they were going to go from being poor,
(04:41):
neglected, and disregarded country folk to helping him rule all of Israel, maybe the world.
What couldn't he do after all? He'd raised the dead. He'd given sight to the
blind. He calmed storms.
They would soon find out just how wrong they were about all of it.
(05:01):
All those people throwing down their cloaks and their palm branches to welcome
him, thinking they were on the cusp of a revolution.
They were all wrong. And when they realized it, they would be the ones who shouted, crucify him.
That's Palm Sunday. Begins with celebration with children dancing in the streets
(05:22):
and they don't even know why.
Begins with people feeling liberated and set free.
And it ends with the man who takes with him on the cross their dreams and hopes.
And they don't know that what he's really doing is redeeming them for all eternity.
Music.
(05:43):
Eternity.
This is our Jesus, and this is Palm Sunday.
Listeners, I asked Pastor Dan if he would do that as an exercise,
and I hope that it blessed you, and I hope that you heard the telling of the
the story of Palm Sunday in a way like you never have before.
(06:04):
I think the, not irony,
but maybe I'll use the word irony here, of the tone that you chose for the story
is that in most church services I've been to celebrating Palm Sunday,
it truly feels like a celebration.
This past Sunday, our kids kind of ran down the center aisle.
(06:27):
Some did cartwheels and just handed out palms. And we sang Hosanna in the highest. Our King is here.
And we were very much channeling the energy of the people that day in Palm Sunday,
right? They thought the Messiah is here.
Our King is here. He's going to save us from the Romans, right?
He's going to save us. Finally, He's going to, you know, do this coup and just overthrow everything.
(06:53):
And it was an exciting thing. But to hear you tell that in a somber, respectful,
weighted way is so impactful because that's how Jesus felt riding in on the donkey.
Probably. He, you know, in my mind's eye, I always picture Palm Sunday the way,
(07:19):
you know, I am a student of history.
I grew up with a lot of influence from people who lived through World War II.
And so I picture in my mind the American troops entering France and liberating France from the Nazis.
And people are lining the streets and they're waving homemade American flags
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and they're throwing flowers at the soldiers.
And women are kissing the soldiers as they march through the streets and drive
their tanks and their jeeps through the streets.
And because it means that they have come to push out their enemy and to restore
their freedom after being oppressed for so long.
So I know that's what people were acting like in Palm Sunday.
(08:04):
They thought, yeah, we've been waiting a long time for this.
They've been under Roman rule.
And, well, even in France during World War II, there were people who had collaborated
with the Nazis. And so, in a way, contributed to the oppression of their own people.
And the same thing was happening in Jerusalem, especially Jerusalem.
You know, the people that had to collaborate with the Romans became part of the problem.
(08:30):
So, the Jews weren't just looking forward to the liberation of Jerusalem from the Romans.
They were looking forward to the freedom from oppression that came from many directions.
And they weren't wrong. You know, that's the thing. You know,
you're right to question whether the term irony is the most appropriate.
The Bible's full of irony.
(08:51):
But if there's a word out there for almost irony—.
If there's something that comes right up to the edge of irony but doesn't cross
over, that's the word I'd want to use because they weren't wrong.
It's just that they had no context for seeing it from Jesus' point of view.
(09:13):
And the fact that I can paint this word picture that I just did doesn't necessarily
mean that I'm any smarter than they were. It just means I have history on my side.
I have the benefit of the Gospels on my side. I have the knowledge and the wisdom
of the church fathers and all those who came after them who have presented us
with a way of understanding what they couldn't understand at the time.
(09:36):
And so all I've done is interpret that a little bit.
You know, we are so fortunate to live in this church age where it's all spelled
out for us. It's not just spelled out. It's done.
You know, Jesus ends with, it is finished. And they wasn't kidding around,
you know. So, yeah, it's good that we can help people.
(09:58):
And I think the only reason a lot of us don't know to think of it that way is
because what we know is shaped for us by our church culture, by our family culture.
And we've talked about that a lot. I don't mean to put anybody down at this
point. I'm not trying to criticize that.
But the reality is, is people, you know, compartmentalize.
We've often talked about our shared upbringing in the Catholic Church.
(10:20):
And on one hand, they do a really good job of giving you a sense of the holiness
and the sacramental nature of these specific days of remembrance.
You know, like, I talked to a really excellent apologist for Catholic doctrine yesterday once again,
and he's a deacon in the Catholic Church, and he's just a really skilled apologist
(10:44):
as a person who can explain why we believe what we believe, you know,
and he's very good at that.
And, you know, he describes Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday,
and Holy Saturday as, you know, and then Easter as the most sacred days of the
year, you know, and he's not wrong.
And so we grew up learning that, but we also compartmentalized each one.
(11:09):
You know, today we're going to do Palm Sunday, then we're going to do this,
and then we're going to do that. And so we kind of have a way of breaking it
down into chapters, like we're watching the annual miniseries, you know.
It's too bad that Christians can't binge watch so that they can take it all in at once, you know.
And so this is what we try to do, you know, is I've always been compelled as
(11:34):
a pastor to present Palm Sunday as a both-and kind of event.
I never want to present the palm part without presenting the betrayal and the
crime of his trial and his crucifixion.
And yet, I want to leave people wanting more so they come back on Thursday to
really flesh it out. And they come back on Friday to flesh it out some more.
(11:57):
And we have provision in our tradition for a vigil service on Saturday,
but we don't do it because it doesn't seem to be a great deal of interest.
And that's a flexibility we have in our denominational history because we don't
have a top-down authority person saying, you have to do it.
So, you know, the priest's going to show up and do it whether anybody comes or not.
(12:20):
It's because it's part of the way they do things. We don't, and that's neither here nor there,
but it just means that, in a way, we have an even greater capacity for separating
ourselves from the continuity of the thing because we leave on Palm Sunday and
come back on Easter Sunday.
And if you don't spend time with everything that happens in between.
(12:42):
Then you're missing so much.
Yeah, absolutely. I love that we have Maundy Thursday service and a Good Friday
service for that reason because so much does happen.
I'm reading a Lenten devotional during this season, and today is Spy Wednesday.
And I don't know that I've heard that before, Spy Wednesday.
(13:04):
It's the day of remembrance of when Judas betrayed Jesus as,
I guess, as a spy, right? Yeah. I don't know. He was a mole.
He's a mole, yeah. Or he made himself one. You know, does anybody start out as a mole?
I guess, I suppose the undercover cops do.
You know, they decide ahead of time to go in.
(13:24):
A deep cover, and then they turn out to be a mole. But anyway,
that's totally irrelevant.
No, it's okay. I think it has some relevance.
I was thinking about Judas today, and I don't know where we're going on this podcast.
This is the beauty of it. We just go wherever our brains take us,
wherever the Lord takes us.
But this morning, it was like, remember that it's easy to think,
(13:51):
oh, Judas was the betrayer, right?
Judas betrayed Jesus, but he was also one of his closest friends.
He saw all the miracles.
He saw Lazarus being raised from the dead.
He heard everything that Jesus had said, and yet he still betrayed him in the end.
And I think that's a good exercise in pride in ourselves, in thinking,
(14:15):
because when they were around the table, right? And Jesus said,
one of you will betray me.
And every single one of them thought, could it be me?
Could it be me? Every single one. And so they were all his closest friends,
but they had the humility to think, well, maybe it could be me.
Maybe I could have that power to do that.
(14:37):
And that's something that I've been reflecting on of like, you know,
whatever it means to be like a good Christian.
That's there's a lot of semantics there but like you
you follow christ and you dedicate your life to him
and yet it's important to still have
the humility to say it could be me like yeah i i think you make a really good
(14:59):
point and when you were saying that i was thinking you know there's so much
insight in these little things you know they all seem to indicate that they
thought it might be them.
Heck, they might have even thought, have I betrayed him already? You know?
And so there's a sequence of events that you've, you've kind of prompted me to think about. So.
(15:24):
At the risk of injuring people's ears, I will think out loud.
So I'm thinking, okay. So first of all, they acknowledge that it could be me,
which tells you, first of all, that they knew that they didn't altogether get it.
Like, there are all these indications in the Gospels that they weren't,
(15:48):
you know, like, again, I'm a little hypersensitive about this.
I don't know that every Christian thinks this way, but I've run into so many
people over the years in my life anyway that really are kind to the apostles
and they make fun of them almost like, well,
if I was there, I wouldn't have acted so ignorant. Yes, you would.
Probably worse. These guys knew more about what it meant to be good Jews than
(16:12):
you'll ever know. You know, and they came from a culture where you memorized
all that stuff because you didn't have a book in your pocket you could whip out and refer to.
You know, these guys knew their stuff.
And they practiced their faith in a way that we can't really represent ourselves as doing equally.
And so when they say to themselves, well, maybe it's me, it's because they understand
(16:41):
that there are a lot of things about Jesus they still haven't figured out yet.
They can't help but follow him, but they also can't help but question him.
I mean, that's evident in Scripture, and that makes them all the more believable to me.
You know, because that's what faith is. Faith is believing something that you
still can't quite pull together in your thought and validate and verify.
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You know, it's like, I have faith in Him, but that doesn't mean I understand how it works.
I have faith in the pilot of the airplane that I'm riding in,
and I have faith in the airplane.
But when it's all said and done, it's not because I understand how it all works.
I'm just confident that they know how it works.
And these days with airplanes falling apart in the sky, parts of them falling off anyway.
(17:28):
It's like, yeah, some people's faith is misguided, but that's temporary,
thankfully. you know, and so, you know, they're admitting that their relationship
with Jesus is incomplete.
And so, then the next thing that happens in that story, you know,
is Peter says, nah, if any of these guys deny you, I won't.
(17:52):
And Jesus says, I got news for you.
You're going to deny me in a
big way. You're going to speak loudly and clearly that you don't know me.
And Peter's like, no, Lord, I'd
never do that. Well, you might remember Sunday, I sort of pontificated.
We had a discussion right before we recorded about what that word means.
(18:15):
I'm not a pope, and I'm not pontificating. But if I were pontificating,
I might say something like, what if Peter wasn't denying Jesus in the way that
we typically assume he means?
We assume he's saying, I don't know him because he's trying to save his own skin.
Because he's really that disgusted and disappointed with the way it turned on a dime that night.
(18:37):
We assume a lot of things about Peter, but what if it just turns out that Peter's
doing what Peter has always done?
Peter was the one that got out of the boat and walked on the water. Nobody else did.
And yet somehow, and this is an important thing to know about Jesus,
because both of those stories tell us something about Jesus as well as about Peter.
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Peter got out of the boat and walked across the stormy water to Jesus.
And then when he started sinking, Jesus said, see, you still don't have enough faith.
Well, if I was Jesus, this is why I'm not, I'd look right past Peter while I'm
pulling him out of the water and saying, you losers didn't even get out of the boat.
Right? You know, at least Peter got out of the boat.
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But no, Jesus says, you know, he doesn't even say good job with as long as it lasted.
You know, you got five or six steps before your faith failed.
He just says, oh, you have little faith.
And the same thing happens then when Jesus says, you're going to deny me.
Well, Jesus probably knew exactly why and how Jesus was going to be denied by
(19:43):
Peter, but he doesn't give Peter a break.
And I'm not sure I have a good answer for that, but let's just accept the fact
that when we make an effort to really obey Jesus and trust Jesus and then we falter,
he might not say, it's okay. You know, it's all right.
The other losers didn't get out of the boat, but you did.
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You know, if we're expecting him to say that, we don't have anything in Scripture
that tells us we should. Take that for whatever it's worth.
However, we jump ahead to when Peter is charged with leading the church into
this age that we're still benefiting from his faith, right?
It's pretty evident that he didn't ask one of the guys who stayed in the boat
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or one of the guys who scattered and ran from him when he was arrested.
He asked the guy who followed him to Caiaphas' house.
He asked the guy who defended him against Caiaphas' soldiers.
He asked the guy who denied him probably because he was trying to keep his cover
so he could stay there and possibly help Jesus.
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And so Peter's going, I don't know him because he's trying not to get discovered
and then no longer able to help Jesus.
And then when Jesus looks at him after he's denied Jesus the third time, maybe he's going,
Peter, appreciate you being here, but that's not what I asked you to do.
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I already told you, put your sword away.
This is the devil's hour. And that's what I was talking about on Sunday.
It's like, give Jesus his due and understand that Peter's denial,
even if it was purely strategic,
even if he was denying Jesus just so he wouldn't get discovered because he was
trying to stay close to Jesus.
(21:38):
Maybe he still had that sword under his cloak.
He's trying to stay close to Jesus because he's got this fantasy that somehow
he's going to rescue Jesus.
Jesus and what Jesus is really
saying is Peter you don't understand
I have to do this if you rescue me you're condemning yourself you know like
(22:00):
like if you save me from the cross then I can't save you from damnation you
know and Peter doesn't understand that so he denies Jesus not because he he
has anything against Jesus,
but because he thinks that he can save Jesus and stop Jesus from going through
with this crazy plan of dying on the cross.
(22:21):
And so, Peter's denial is more about Peter still not getting it,
and to a certain extent, being disobedient.
I mean, you know, we like to think of Peter as being a little rambunctious and
all this, and this would be a a good example then.
If we take the same guy who's sort of famous for his impulsiveness, right?
(22:41):
If we take that same guy and then apply him to that situation,
then it's easier to understand that he was kind of pulling his cloak over his
head and he's sneaking along behind the crowd trying to stay close to Jesus
because he's still got it in his head that even though Jesus won't let him keep
cutting people's ears off,
he's going to stay close in case he gets a chance to pull Jesus out of this
(23:02):
situation because he doesn't want Jesus to get killed.
And Jesus, again, just like on the Mount of Olives approaching the temple for
what we call Palm Sunday, Jesus is going, you guys don't see it the way I see it.
You're going to one of these days, I promise you. I'm going to give you a gift
that will make you able to understand it all and interpret it to others.
(23:26):
And when you do, you'll even realize how ignorant you were. But before that,
you're just going to have to take my word for it.
And so, you know, it's a different take. And I can imagine certain people arguing
with me, you know, about that.
But that's because they need for Jesus to fit into a certain box,
and they need Peter to fit into a certain box.
(23:48):
But I'm always looking at a new angle just for fun, you know.
And what I think is Peter was probably not wrong for denying Jesus as much as
he was wrong for denying Jesus' plan.
Yeah, we've talked before in another podcast how Peter was kind of his ride or die.
Peter was the dude, right? He was his number one.
(24:10):
And he was rambunctious and all these things.
And I think he was fiercely loyal to a fault to where he couldn't see that Jesus
is everyone's Savior and his own Savior,
but he still thinks that he can be Jesus' Savior.
(24:30):
Right? I mean, is that, would you agree? Yeah, I do.
I just kind of, I hate to say it, but my mind raced ahead of you as you said
that because I was thinking about Easter Sunday.
Yeah. The problem they all have on Easter Sunday or on Resurrection Day is none
of them believed or understood that Jesus would rise again.
And who would? I mean, if we're honest, we've lived with 2,000 years of stories
(24:56):
reminding us over and over again that Jesus rose from the grave,
that he's alive today. day.
And so, we have 2,000 years of history about one man who did rise from the dead
and actually resurrected, which is a unique form of rising.
You know, there have been people who have been revived.
Lazarus was revived, you know. Jairus' daughter was revived.
(25:20):
The woman at Jaffa was revived by Peter.
And, you know, so there's just people who have been dead, and then they were
brought back to life, and they keep living and breathing until they grow old and die, you know.
But Jesus, on the other hand, is resurrected.
He is what we will be when he resurrects all of us.
And that's why the Bible calls him firstborn of the resurrected dead.
(25:42):
So what these guys are dealing with is, first of all, having no capacity to
anticipate Jesus by his own authority rising rising from the dead. That's the other thing.
When Jesus is alive and he's standing outside a tomb telling someone to wake
up and come out, that's Jesus making it happen to someone else.
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But now they're saying, well, look, I saw him die.
You know, and the one thing about Jesus's death on the cross we can be certain
of is there wasn't any blood left in his body.
I mean, they drained every drop out of him that could be drained out of him, you know.
I don't know. The Romans were probably pretty diabolical and knew this,
but those nails in the feet did two things, you know, held his feet there,
(26:26):
but it also gave blood a place to fall out.
Oh, yeah. Because blood pools in bodies when people die, you know,
and because it's not being pumped anymore.
But if you're holding them upright on a cross and you've got a hole at the bottom
in their feet, it's got a place to go.
So literally his blood has drained out onto the ground, all of it.
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And don't miss the significance of that, because what did I say about the blood of the sacrifices?
You know, it all drained out and bled into the ground and was drained across
channels and then soaked into the ground.
So where is Jesus's blood? It's in the same ground all the sacrifices bled into,
right there around Jerusalem.
(27:09):
So, you know, they've got every reason to say, no, he was dead.
Dead like there is no question in anyone's mind
that he is dead they you know people
make comments and try to explain it away and everything but
there's no mistaking the fact that jesus was dead and they had no way to understand
(27:30):
even when he was saying you know i i will be raised up on the third day you
know they understood that when he said he would tear the temple down and rebuild it in three days,
the apostles seemed to have understood that he didn't literally mean that he
was going to start going at it with a hammer and tearing it down.
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You know, now people use that against him the way we pick on soundbites from
politicians and things, you know, so there were people that mocked him for saying that.
They used that as an excuse to arrest him. He said he'd tear the temple down
and rebuild it in three days.
It took 40 years to build this, blah, blah, blah. And they're just, they know better.
They know he's speaking figuratively. They all know that he's speaking figuratively,
(28:13):
even his enemies, but, you know, depends on which way you want the soundbite to play.
Play it backwards, it says what you want it to say. Play it forwards,
it says what I want it to say. You know, that's what they were doing to Jesus.
So when Jesus says he's going to be raised the third day, they're probably assuming
it's a figurative statement, too.
They're probably just as confused about that as they are about everything else
(28:37):
he says. So when they discover that he's alive, there's—I'm trying to think—.
Think you and I've had this conversation once before where I was telling you
that I had thought for probably 30 years that I had a heidel hernia.
And then the doctor told me last year, no, you don't have one.
(28:57):
In fact, you've never had one.
And it's like, not a big deal, really.
But when you have believed something so thoroughly and just accepted it for
fact, and then when it's presented to you factually as being incorrect.
You know, no, that'd be like a person finding out that they were adopted after
(29:18):
they've grown for, you know, 30 years or so, knowing that these were their parents
and the parents never told them you're adopted.
And then one day you find out you're adopted. I mean, the way that causes a
person to stop, I mean, just like freeze for a few minutes or a few days or
weeks or months or whatever, and just kind of go, I'm not who I I thought I was.
(29:39):
In my case, I'm not a guy with a hiatal hernia and all this time I thought I
was, you know, it turns out I'm just fat or whatever.
Right. You know, but, but, but you, you know, this is, this is a small way for
us to try to understand how these guys felt on resurrection Direction Day.
(30:02):
Because the dumbest guy in the bunch, which isn't saying a lot,
but I'm just saying that the ones who were the closest to him,
like Peter, James, and John, you know, they should have been a little more clear
on what they were seeing.
But the fact is, is everybody in the group understood that they hadn't anticipated this.
(30:24):
And then Jesus is sitting there in front of them, you know, saying,
hey, you guys got anything to eat?
Yeah, if you need to, touch these wounds. They're real. I'm real.
This isn't a ghost. This isn't, you know. And so he's got characteristics that
defy our understanding of humanity, but they don't defy what could be the nature of resurrection.
(30:44):
So we have to accept that he's giving us a little taste of what our futures are going to be like.
But all that to say that they have no concept for comprehending what what they've
just seen and experienced, and then to try to apply theological sense and doctrinal sense.
(31:04):
I mean, like, they were completely, you know, perplexed by the whole thing,
and then Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on them, which isn't the same thing
as Pentecost, because that's when the Holy Spirit comes on all Christian believers,
all born-again believers.
But in the upper room, it's saying
that they had reached the capacity of
(31:25):
their brains and so he gave them a little dose of jesus you know he gave him
a little holy spirit so that they could comprehend what they had not been able
to comprehend and then it starts to come clear to them and all of a sudden their
aha moment happens and they realize oh my gosh.
That's why he didn't want me to interfere with what he was doing.
(31:48):
That's why he didn't want me to stop this from happening, because there was
something cosmic going on here.
It was way beyond just about him and the high priests and the Roman guards and
all that. It was way more than that.
He wasn't just contending with the cross. He was contending with the enemy of
(32:09):
God. He was contending with death.
He was contending with sin. in. You know, it's way more than what I thought it was.
And so what did they do? Peter says, I'm going fishing.
Yeah. Right. Why does he go back to his day job?
That's all he knows. Because after he gains the insight that tells him how completely
(32:31):
wrong he has been, when he realizes that he didn't get any of this, he's like, I'm done.
You know, there's a passage There's a passage in the Bible, and I'm trying to
think of exactly where it is now, but there's a passage that roughly translates
that, you know, the guy's in the face of God.
(32:51):
It sounds like an Isaiah thing, but I can't be sure.
But the guy's standing, you know, face to face with God or face to heaven,
you know, whatever. And he goes, I'm undone.
I mean, he just says, that's it. I'm done. done. I was just going to use a colloquialism
(33:12):
that I don't think I should, but, you know, it's just like, hey,
yeah, we're done. We've had it.
You know, there's moments, you know, if you're standing on the beach and you
see a hundred foot wave coming at you, you know, just say, I'm done. I'm done.
Because you ain't going to outrun it. You know, and I think that's what they
(33:32):
were thinking is, oh my gosh, I'm done, but I'm alive to tell the tale.
I have to stay alive and deal with the fact that everything I thought was wrong.
And the irony and the beauty of that is that that's really what all of us have to do.
See, God is using this whole narrative to teach us what it means to be redeemed
(33:57):
and born again, because in order to be redeemed, you have have to come to the
same place the apostles came to.
You have to be completely undone. You have to realize that everything you thought was right isn't.
You have to realize that you didn't become worthy of heaven because of anything
you did or anything you thought about or anything that you believed,
(34:21):
you know, that none of that gets you into heaven.
What gets you into heaven is standing before Jesus like Peter did that day when
they were fishing, and Peter's like, yes, Lord, I love you, but I'm not good
enough for you, and you know it. And Jesus says.
Got a job for you. And then he says again, Lord, I love you,
(34:43):
but you know, I'm not good enough for your work. I'm not qualified to serve you.
And Peter gets told again, no, Peter, actually, I think you'll do just fine.
In fact, I'm beginning to feel better about you all the time, you know?
And then the third time he says, look, Peter, don't you get it?
It doesn't matter how much or how little you love me, as long as you love me,
(35:06):
as long as you're in it for the long long haul.
As long as you're committed, I can work with that.
It wasn't what Peter could bring to Jesus that got him the job of being the
leader of the birth church.
It was what he gave up that made him qualified. He died to himself.
(35:30):
And now when Jesus is asking this impulsive, brazen guy guy who's always saying,
hey, I got your back, Jesus.
I got your back when nobody else has got your back. I got news for you, boy.
When you take over, I'll be right there for you to make sure nobody crosses
you the wrong way or anything.
You know, he's just got this super positive attitude about everything.
(35:51):
And so Peter had to be thoroughly broken in order for Jesus to lift him up and
say, now you're ready to lead my church, to feed my sheep.
And Peter's confession that he loves the the Lord has been interpreted a lot of different ways.
But at the end of the day, it isn't about what he told Jesus.
It's about what Jesus told him. And Jesus told it to him after Peter had given up and said, I'm done.
(36:19):
This last three years has been a wild ride. I didn't learn a dang thing.
And Peter's basically being told by Jesus, no, actually, you did.
Learn that in order to be the recipient of all that I have to give you,
you have to empty yourself first.
(36:41):
And there is a saying about the ways that Jesus was told that Peter loved him.
You know, there's pastors, green pastors like I was once upon a time,
the brand new pastors who just came out of Bible school or seminary.
They all preach that sermon where they've just learned that That Peter's word
for love was three different words in Greek, and each one was a descending value.
(37:06):
So, you know, at first Peter says, yes, I love you. Like, I love you, man.
And then the second time is, look, you know, I'm fond of you and that I,
you know, am mildly committed to you.
And the third time he said, okay, look, I'm dedicated to what you stand for.
You know and and what it is is it's the last dregs
(37:30):
of what's left in peter you know
that the he's finally qualified to be everything jesus wants him to be because
he's completely emptied himself i love it i love it and i just keep thinking
the whole time that you're saying this is that that's what we're called to do
too yeah there's a phrase i've been hearing a lot lately And it's,
(37:51):
we all meet at the foot of the cross,
just like Peter, just like the disciples. Yep.
It's when you think you know what's going on when you get into trouble.
It's when you think that you've got it all figured out or that you can save Jesus.
That's when you really got to look at Peter's story, really,
(38:12):
through the whole thing, especially this week.
Yeah, you know, you just gave me a thought. Now, you're probably wondering how
in the world do you help me get to this.
But I think if I was going to add something to my getting out of the boat and
the other guys, maybe Peter's mistake was right before he stepped out of the
boat, he looked over his shoulder and thought, losers.
(38:32):
And then he got out of the boat. Yeah. And maybe that's why Jesus said, yeah, losers.
Yeah, like, hey, watch me. I'll go do this. I mean, you know,
we can only guess, but it would make sense, you know, that Peter is in this
constant struggle against his pride.
And and yet he
was probably less proud than some of the people we've
(38:54):
both been dealing with in our lives lately you know that
we all have these encounters with people whose pride is just off the charts
and and peter was probably nothing like that but but jesus has a view towards
that day by the sea of galilee when he's going to hand over the birth of the
church to peter and his his friends, you know?
(39:15):
Peter, you're not, you haven't unpacked your pride enough, but we're going to get there.
Yeah. So unpack your pride, right?
Yeah. Listener, not you, Pastor Dan. I get you. Yeah. But I got to do it too. Right. Every day.
You know, I could hang up the microphone after we're done and walk away thinking,
(39:37):
wow, I was really good. I pontificated.
And then what would I be? But if I can say with honesty, I'm grateful for all
that I've learned, and I'm grateful for all the gifts and talents that I've developed.
But at the end of the day, I'm most grateful for the Holy Spirit that informs
my words, and I'd be nothing without it.
(40:01):
There's a lot of intelligent people out there that don't say anything worth
hearing because it's not coming from the heart and mind of God.
True. True. Unpack your pride and stay in tune with the Spirit.
Yeah. Check in every day. That's a good word.
I like it. All right.
Well, friends, thank you for listening, and I hope that this holy week is truly
(40:25):
holy for you, and I'll meet you at the foot of the cross.
Music.
Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives with his friends.
In a moment, he would send them
over the hill to Bethany and Bethpage to fetch a donkey or a young colt.
As he looked back over from the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley towards
(00:23):
the temple, Smoke rose from the endless animal sacrifices.
He could see or sense the blood flowing from the sacrificial altars,
the tables of preparation.
The expert butchers who were also the Levite priests, skilled at their work,
(00:49):
but accustomed to blood.
Streams of blood run through channels in the stone floor of the tabernacle,
basins, and places of preparation outside the temple.
Just a little distant from the place where the death and the dying is making
(01:13):
atonement for the living, the very presence of God. But Jesus looked at all
of it. He could hear the city sounds.
He could hear the wind blowing through palm trees, sparse as they are in the Mount of Olives.
He waited as his friends returned with the colt.
And then he mounted up, his friends throwing their cloaks over the colt's back.
(01:37):
And they led him down the narrow lane to the bottom of the mountain across the Kidron Valley.
And as they came, people gathered along the lane, taking palm branches and laying
them on the rain before him, and even their coats and their wraps. Then they...
(02:02):
Through a gate that's closed now locked down
in the 1500s by Muslims and heard
one too many Christians declaring Jesus but
entered through that same gate and he would turn but this
day the gate is open and it is in fact the
same gate that the sheep of my group and the
various other animals prepared for sacrificial offering
(02:25):
it is the same gate that the shepherds go through to To bring those animals
around to the front of the tabernacle or the temple to be presented to the priests slash butchers.
There's smoke. There's the sound of sizzling, bleeding of all different kinds,
(02:52):
fearing for their lives in silence.
And there's sounds and smells and birth things.
Well, there's some late natural requirements for managing animals,
just very much like what we see outside of a slaughterhouse today.
(03:13):
All of it meant to atone for the sins of people of God. This is where Jesus was headed.
This is what he was doing. He was moving methodically.
Direction of the sacrifices, and nobody understood it the way he did.
Nobody knew what he was doing or why.
(03:34):
Some could guess that he was fulfilling prophecies about the coming of the Messiah
on a cult that had never been written before, some could recognize,
the similarity to their dreams and expectations, but he knew better.
He knew better. How ironic that the one who came to Bethlehem to be born in
(03:57):
a sheep pen where the sacrificial lambs for the temple were raised,
the one who was born there came on a donkey's back, albeit while he resided
in his mother's womb, and now he's back.
First time he came as a sheep to the slaughter was to be born in the slaughterhouse sheep pen.
(04:20):
The second time he comes, it is to fulfill the atonement through his blood,
through his pierced body.
He understood, but the rest of them just thought he was going to establish a new kingdom. him.
His friends were excited because they were going to go from being poor,
(04:41):
neglected, and disregarded country folk to helping him rule all of Israel, maybe the world.
What couldn't he do after all? He'd raised the dead. He'd given sight to the
blind. He calmed storms.
They would soon find out just how wrong they were about all of it.
(05:01):
All those people throwing down their cloaks and their palm branches to welcome
him, thinking they were on the cusp of a revolution.
They were all wrong. And when they realized it, they would be the ones who shouted, crucify him.
That's Palm Sunday. Begins with celebration with children dancing in the streets
(05:22):
and they don't even know why.
Begins with people feeling liberated and set free.
And it ends with the man who takes with him on the cross their dreams and hopes.
And they don't know that what he's really doing is redeeming them for all eternity.
Music.
(05:43):
Eternity.
This is our Jesus, and this is Palm Sunday.
Listeners, I asked Pastor Dan if he would do that as an exercise,
and I hope that it blessed you, and I hope that you heard the telling of the
the story of Palm Sunday in a way like you never have before.
(06:04):
I think the, not irony,
but maybe I'll use the word irony here, of the tone that you chose for the story
is that in most church services I've been to celebrating Palm Sunday,
it truly feels like a celebration.
This past Sunday, our kids kind of ran down the center aisle.
(06:27):
Some did cartwheels and just handed out palms. And we sang Hosanna in the highest. Our King is here.
And we were very much channeling the energy of the people that day in Palm Sunday,
right? They thought the Messiah is here.
Our King is here. He's going to save us from the Romans, right?
He's going to save us. Finally, He's going to, you know, do this coup and just overthrow everything.
(06:53):
And it was an exciting thing. But to hear you tell that in a somber, respectful,
weighted way is so impactful because that's how Jesus felt riding in on the donkey.
Probably. He, you know, in my mind's eye, I always picture Palm Sunday the way,
(07:19):
you know, I am a student of history.
I grew up with a lot of influence from people who lived through World War II.
And so I picture in my mind the American troops entering France and liberating France from the Nazis.
And people are lining the streets and they're waving homemade American flags
(07:40):
and they're throwing flowers at the soldiers.
And women are kissing the soldiers as they march through the streets and drive
their tanks and their jeeps through the streets.
And because it means that they have come to push out their enemy and to restore
their freedom after being oppressed for so long.
So I know that's what people were acting like in Palm Sunday.
(08:04):
They thought, yeah, we've been waiting a long time for this.
They've been under Roman rule.
And, well, even in France during World War II, there were people who had collaborated
with the Nazis. And so, in a way, contributed to the oppression of their own people.
And the same thing was happening in Jerusalem, especially Jerusalem.
You know, the people that had to collaborate with the Romans became part of the problem.
(08:30):
So, the Jews weren't just looking forward to the liberation of Jerusalem from the Romans.
They were looking forward to the freedom from oppression that came from many directions.
And they weren't wrong. You know, that's the thing. You know,
you're right to question whether the term irony is the most appropriate.
The Bible's full of irony.
(08:51):
But if there's a word out there for almost irony—.
If there's something that comes right up to the edge of irony but doesn't cross
over, that's the word I'd want to use because they weren't wrong.
It's just that they had no context for seeing it from Jesus' point of view.
(09:13):
And the fact that I can paint this word picture that I just did doesn't necessarily
mean that I'm any smarter than they were. It just means I have history on my side.
I have the benefit of the Gospels on my side. I have the knowledge and the wisdom
of the church fathers and all those who came after them who have presented us
with a way of understanding what they couldn't understand at the time.
(09:36):
And so all I've done is interpret that a little bit.
You know, we are so fortunate to live in this church age where it's all spelled
out for us. It's not just spelled out. It's done.
You know, Jesus ends with, it is finished. And they wasn't kidding around,
you know. So, yeah, it's good that we can help people.
(09:58):
And I think the only reason a lot of us don't know to think of it that way is
because what we know is shaped for us by our church culture, by our family culture.
And we've talked about that a lot. I don't mean to put anybody down at this
point. I'm not trying to criticize that.
But the reality is, is people, you know, compartmentalize.
We've often talked about our shared upbringing in the Catholic Church.
(10:20):
And on one hand, they do a really good job of giving you a sense of the holiness
and the sacramental nature of these specific days of remembrance.
You know, like, I talked to a really excellent apologist for Catholic doctrine yesterday once again,
and he's a deacon in the Catholic Church, and he's just a really skilled apologist
(10:44):
as a person who can explain why we believe what we believe, you know,
and he's very good at that.
And, you know, he describes Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday,
and Holy Saturday as, you know, and then Easter as the most sacred days of the
year, you know, and he's not wrong.
And so we grew up learning that, but we also compartmentalized each one.
(11:09):
You know, today we're going to do Palm Sunday, then we're going to do this,
and then we're going to do that. And so we kind of have a way of breaking it
down into chapters, like we're watching the annual miniseries, you know.
It's too bad that Christians can't binge watch so that they can take it all in at once, you know.
And so this is what we try to do, you know, is I've always been compelled as
(11:34):
a pastor to present Palm Sunday as a both-and kind of event.
I never want to present the palm part without presenting the betrayal and the
crime of his trial and his crucifixion.
And yet, I want to leave people wanting more so they come back on Thursday to
really flesh it out. And they come back on Friday to flesh it out some more.
(11:57):
And we have provision in our tradition for a vigil service on Saturday,
but we don't do it because it doesn't seem to be a great deal of interest.
And that's a flexibility we have in our denominational history because we don't
have a top-down authority person saying, you have to do it.
So, you know, the priest's going to show up and do it whether anybody comes or not.
(12:20):
It's because it's part of the way they do things. We don't, and that's neither here nor there,
but it just means that, in a way, we have an even greater capacity for separating
ourselves from the continuity of the thing because we leave on Palm Sunday and
come back on Easter Sunday.
And if you don't spend time with everything that happens in between.
(12:42):
Then you're missing so much.
Yeah, absolutely. I love that we have Maundy Thursday service and a Good Friday
service for that reason because so much does happen.
I'm reading a Lenten devotional during this season, and today is Spy Wednesday.
And I don't know that I've heard that before, Spy Wednesday.
(13:04):
It's the day of remembrance of when Judas betrayed Jesus as,
I guess, as a spy, right? Yeah. I don't know. He was a mole.
He's a mole, yeah. Or he made himself one. You know, does anybody start out as a mole?
I guess, I suppose the undercover cops do.
You know, they decide ahead of time to go in.
(13:24):
A deep cover, and then they turn out to be a mole. But anyway,
that's totally irrelevant.
No, it's okay. I think it has some relevance.
I was thinking about Judas today, and I don't know where we're going on this podcast.
This is the beauty of it. We just go wherever our brains take us,
wherever the Lord takes us.
But this morning, it was like, remember that it's easy to think,
(13:51):
oh, Judas was the betrayer, right?
Judas betrayed Jesus, but he was also one of his closest friends.
He saw all the miracles.
He saw Lazarus being raised from the dead.
He heard everything that Jesus had said, and yet he still betrayed him in the end.
And I think that's a good exercise in pride in ourselves, in thinking,
(14:15):
because when they were around the table, right? And Jesus said,
one of you will betray me.
And every single one of them thought, could it be me?
Could it be me? Every single one. And so they were all his closest friends,
but they had the humility to think, well, maybe it could be me.
Maybe I could have that power to do that.
(14:37):
And that's something that I've been reflecting on of like, you know,
whatever it means to be like a good Christian.
That's there's a lot of semantics there but like you
you follow christ and you dedicate your life to him
and yet it's important to still have
the humility to say it could be me like yeah i i think you make a really good
(14:59):
point and when you were saying that i was thinking you know there's so much
insight in these little things you know they all seem to indicate that they
thought it might be them.
Heck, they might have even thought, have I betrayed him already? You know?
And so there's a sequence of events that you've, you've kind of prompted me to think about. So.
(15:24):
At the risk of injuring people's ears, I will think out loud.
So I'm thinking, okay. So first of all, they acknowledge that it could be me,
which tells you, first of all, that they knew that they didn't altogether get it.
Like, there are all these indications in the Gospels that they weren't,
(15:48):
you know, like, again, I'm a little hypersensitive about this.
I don't know that every Christian thinks this way, but I've run into so many
people over the years in my life anyway that really are kind to the apostles
and they make fun of them almost like, well,
if I was there, I wouldn't have acted so ignorant. Yes, you would.
Probably worse. These guys knew more about what it meant to be good Jews than
(16:12):
you'll ever know. You know, and they came from a culture where you memorized
all that stuff because you didn't have a book in your pocket you could whip out and refer to.
You know, these guys knew their stuff.
And they practiced their faith in a way that we can't really represent ourselves as doing equally.
And so when they say to themselves, well, maybe it's me, it's because they understand
(16:41):
that there are a lot of things about Jesus they still haven't figured out yet.
They can't help but follow him, but they also can't help but question him.
I mean, that's evident in Scripture, and that makes them all the more believable to me.
You know, because that's what faith is. Faith is believing something that you
still can't quite pull together in your thought and validate and verify.
(17:05):
You know, it's like, I have faith in Him, but that doesn't mean I understand how it works.
I have faith in the pilot of the airplane that I'm riding in,
and I have faith in the airplane.
But when it's all said and done, it's not because I understand how it all works.
I'm just confident that they know how it works.
And these days with airplanes falling apart in the sky, parts of them falling off anyway.
(17:28):
It's like, yeah, some people's faith is misguided, but that's temporary,
thankfully. you know, and so, you know, they're admitting that their relationship
with Jesus is incomplete.
And so, then the next thing that happens in that story, you know,
is Peter says, nah, if any of these guys deny you, I won't.
(17:52):
And Jesus says, I got news for you.
You're going to deny me in a
big way. You're going to speak loudly and clearly that you don't know me.
And Peter's like, no, Lord, I'd
never do that. Well, you might remember Sunday, I sort of pontificated.
We had a discussion right before we recorded about what that word means.
(18:15):
I'm not a pope, and I'm not pontificating. But if I were pontificating,
I might say something like, what if Peter wasn't denying Jesus in the way that
we typically assume he means?
We assume he's saying, I don't know him because he's trying to save his own skin.
Because he's really that disgusted and disappointed with the way it turned on a dime that night.
(18:37):
We assume a lot of things about Peter, but what if it just turns out that Peter's
doing what Peter has always done?
Peter was the one that got out of the boat and walked on the water. Nobody else did.
And yet somehow, and this is an important thing to know about Jesus,
because both of those stories tell us something about Jesus as well as about Peter.
(18:58):
Peter got out of the boat and walked across the stormy water to Jesus.
And then when he started sinking, Jesus said, see, you still don't have enough faith.
Well, if I was Jesus, this is why I'm not, I'd look right past Peter while I'm
pulling him out of the water and saying, you losers didn't even get out of the boat.
Right? You know, at least Peter got out of the boat.
(19:22):
But no, Jesus says, you know, he doesn't even say good job with as long as it lasted.
You know, you got five or six steps before your faith failed.
He just says, oh, you have little faith.
And the same thing happens then when Jesus says, you're going to deny me.
Well, Jesus probably knew exactly why and how Jesus was going to be denied by
(19:43):
Peter, but he doesn't give Peter a break.
And I'm not sure I have a good answer for that, but let's just accept the fact
that when we make an effort to really obey Jesus and trust Jesus and then we falter,
he might not say, it's okay. You know, it's all right.
The other losers didn't get out of the boat, but you did.
(20:06):
You know, if we're expecting him to say that, we don't have anything in Scripture
that tells us we should. Take that for whatever it's worth.
However, we jump ahead to when Peter is charged with leading the church into
this age that we're still benefiting from his faith, right?
It's pretty evident that he didn't ask one of the guys who stayed in the boat
(20:30):
or one of the guys who scattered and ran from him when he was arrested.
He asked the guy who followed him to Caiaphas' house.
He asked the guy who defended him against Caiaphas' soldiers.
He asked the guy who denied him probably because he was trying to keep his cover
so he could stay there and possibly help Jesus.
(20:54):
And so Peter's going, I don't know him because he's trying not to get discovered
and then no longer able to help Jesus.
And then when Jesus looks at him after he's denied Jesus the third time, maybe he's going,
Peter, appreciate you being here, but that's not what I asked you to do.
(21:17):
I already told you, put your sword away.
This is the devil's hour. And that's what I was talking about on Sunday.
It's like, give Jesus his due and understand that Peter's denial,
even if it was purely strategic,
even if he was denying Jesus just so he wouldn't get discovered because he was
trying to stay close to Jesus.
(21:38):
Maybe he still had that sword under his cloak.
He's trying to stay close to Jesus because he's got this fantasy that somehow
he's going to rescue Jesus.
Jesus and what Jesus is really
saying is Peter you don't understand
I have to do this if you rescue me you're condemning yourself you know like
(22:00):
like if you save me from the cross then I can't save you from damnation you
know and Peter doesn't understand that so he denies Jesus not because he he
has anything against Jesus,
but because he thinks that he can save Jesus and stop Jesus from going through
with this crazy plan of dying on the cross.
(22:21):
And so, Peter's denial is more about Peter still not getting it,
and to a certain extent, being disobedient.
I mean, you know, we like to think of Peter as being a little rambunctious and
all this, and this would be a a good example then.
If we take the same guy who's sort of famous for his impulsiveness, right?
(22:41):
If we take that same guy and then apply him to that situation,
then it's easier to understand that he was kind of pulling his cloak over his
head and he's sneaking along behind the crowd trying to stay close to Jesus
because he's still got it in his head that even though Jesus won't let him keep
cutting people's ears off,
he's going to stay close in case he gets a chance to pull Jesus out of this
(23:02):
situation because he doesn't want Jesus to get killed.
And Jesus, again, just like on the Mount of Olives approaching the temple for
what we call Palm Sunday, Jesus is going, you guys don't see it the way I see it.
You're going to one of these days, I promise you. I'm going to give you a gift
that will make you able to understand it all and interpret it to others.
(23:26):
And when you do, you'll even realize how ignorant you were. But before that,
you're just going to have to take my word for it.
And so, you know, it's a different take. And I can imagine certain people arguing
with me, you know, about that.
But that's because they need for Jesus to fit into a certain box,
and they need Peter to fit into a certain box.
(23:48):
But I'm always looking at a new angle just for fun, you know.
And what I think is Peter was probably not wrong for denying Jesus as much as
he was wrong for denying Jesus' plan.
Yeah, we've talked before in another podcast how Peter was kind of his ride or die.
Peter was the dude, right? He was his number one.
(24:10):
And he was rambunctious and all these things.
And I think he was fiercely loyal to a fault to where he couldn't see that Jesus
is everyone's Savior and his own Savior,
but he still thinks that he can be Jesus' Savior.
(24:30):
Right? I mean, is that, would you agree? Yeah, I do.
I just kind of, I hate to say it, but my mind raced ahead of you as you said
that because I was thinking about Easter Sunday.
Yeah. The problem they all have on Easter Sunday or on Resurrection Day is none
of them believed or understood that Jesus would rise again.
And who would? I mean, if we're honest, we've lived with 2,000 years of stories
(24:56):
reminding us over and over again that Jesus rose from the grave,
that he's alive today. day.
And so, we have 2,000 years of history about one man who did rise from the dead
and actually resurrected, which is a unique form of rising.
You know, there have been people who have been revived.
Lazarus was revived, you know. Jairus' daughter was revived.
(25:20):
The woman at Jaffa was revived by Peter.
And, you know, so there's just people who have been dead, and then they were
brought back to life, and they keep living and breathing until they grow old and die, you know.
But Jesus, on the other hand, is resurrected.
He is what we will be when he resurrects all of us.
And that's why the Bible calls him firstborn of the resurrected dead.
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So what these guys are dealing with is, first of all, having no capacity to
anticipate Jesus by his own authority rising rising from the dead. That's the other thing.
When Jesus is alive and he's standing outside a tomb telling someone to wake
up and come out, that's Jesus making it happen to someone else.
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But now they're saying, well, look, I saw him die.
You know, and the one thing about Jesus's death on the cross we can be certain
of is there wasn't any blood left in his body.
I mean, they drained every drop out of him that could be drained out of him, you know.
I don't know. The Romans were probably pretty diabolical and knew this,
but those nails in the feet did two things, you know, held his feet there,
(26:26):
but it also gave blood a place to fall out.
Oh, yeah. Because blood pools in bodies when people die, you know,
and because it's not being pumped anymore.
But if you're holding them upright on a cross and you've got a hole at the bottom
in their feet, it's got a place to go.
So literally his blood has drained out onto the ground, all of it.
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And don't miss the significance of that, because what did I say about the blood of the sacrifices?
You know, it all drained out and bled into the ground and was drained across
channels and then soaked into the ground.
So where is Jesus's blood? It's in the same ground all the sacrifices bled into,
right there around Jerusalem.
(27:09):
So, you know, they've got every reason to say, no, he was dead.
Dead like there is no question in anyone's mind
that he is dead they you know people
make comments and try to explain it away and everything but
there's no mistaking the fact that jesus was dead and they had no way to understand
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even when he was saying you know i i will be raised up on the third day you
know they understood that when he said he would tear the temple down and rebuild it in three days,
the apostles seemed to have understood that he didn't literally mean that he
was going to start going at it with a hammer and tearing it down.
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You know, now people use that against him the way we pick on soundbites from
politicians and things, you know, so there were people that mocked him for saying that.
They used that as an excuse to arrest him. He said he'd tear the temple down
and rebuild it in three days.
It took 40 years to build this, blah, blah, blah. And they're just, they know better.
They know he's speaking figuratively. They all know that he's speaking figuratively,
(28:13):
even his enemies, but, you know, depends on which way you want the soundbite to play.
Play it backwards, it says what you want it to say. Play it forwards,
it says what I want it to say. You know, that's what they were doing to Jesus.
So when Jesus says he's going to be raised the third day, they're probably assuming
it's a figurative statement, too.
They're probably just as confused about that as they are about everything else
(28:37):
he says. So when they discover that he's alive, there's—I'm trying to think—.
Think you and I've had this conversation once before where I was telling you
that I had thought for probably 30 years that I had a heidel hernia.
And then the doctor told me last year, no, you don't have one.
(28:57):
In fact, you've never had one.
And it's like, not a big deal, really.
But when you have believed something so thoroughly and just accepted it for
fact, and then when it's presented to you factually as being incorrect.
You know, no, that'd be like a person finding out that they were adopted after
(29:18):
they've grown for, you know, 30 years or so, knowing that these were their parents
and the parents never told them you're adopted.
And then one day you find out you're adopted. I mean, the way that causes a
person to stop, I mean, just like freeze for a few minutes or a few days or
weeks or months or whatever, and just kind of go, I'm not who I I thought I was.
(29:39):
In my case, I'm not a guy with a hiatal hernia and all this time I thought I
was, you know, it turns out I'm just fat or whatever.
Right. You know, but, but, but you, you know, this is, this is a small way for
us to try to understand how these guys felt on resurrection Direction Day.
(30:02):
Because the dumbest guy in the bunch, which isn't saying a lot,
but I'm just saying that the ones who were the closest to him,
like Peter, James, and John, you know, they should have been a little more clear
on what they were seeing.
But the fact is, is everybody in the group understood that they hadn't anticipated this.
(30:24):
And then Jesus is sitting there in front of them, you know, saying,
hey, you guys got anything to eat?
Yeah, if you need to, touch these wounds. They're real. I'm real.
This isn't a ghost. This isn't, you know. And so he's got characteristics that
defy our understanding of humanity, but they don't defy what could be the nature of resurrection.
(30:44):
So we have to accept that he's giving us a little taste of what our futures are going to be like.
But all that to say that they have no concept for comprehending what what they've
just seen and experienced, and then to try to apply theological sense and doctrinal sense.
(31:04):
I mean, like, they were completely, you know, perplexed by the whole thing,
and then Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on them, which isn't the same thing
as Pentecost, because that's when the Holy Spirit comes on all Christian believers,
all born-again believers.
But in the upper room, it's saying
that they had reached the capacity of
(31:25):
their brains and so he gave them a little dose of jesus you know he gave him
a little holy spirit so that they could comprehend what they had not been able
to comprehend and then it starts to come clear to them and all of a sudden their
aha moment happens and they realize oh my gosh.
That's why he didn't want me to interfere with what he was doing.
(31:48):
That's why he didn't want me to stop this from happening, because there was
something cosmic going on here.
It was way beyond just about him and the high priests and the Roman guards and
all that. It was way more than that.
He wasn't just contending with the cross. He was contending with the enemy of
(32:09):
God. He was contending with death.
He was contending with sin. in. You know, it's way more than what I thought it was.
And so what did they do? Peter says, I'm going fishing.
Yeah. Right. Why does he go back to his day job?
That's all he knows. Because after he gains the insight that tells him how completely
(32:31):
wrong he has been, when he realizes that he didn't get any of this, he's like, I'm done.
You know, there's a passage There's a passage in the Bible, and I'm trying to
think of exactly where it is now, but there's a passage that roughly translates
that, you know, the guy's in the face of God.
(32:51):
It sounds like an Isaiah thing, but I can't be sure.
But the guy's standing, you know, face to face with God or face to heaven,
you know, whatever. And he goes, I'm undone.
I mean, he just says, that's it. I'm done. done. I was just going to use a colloquialism
(33:12):
that I don't think I should, but, you know, it's just like, hey,
yeah, we're done. We've had it.
You know, there's moments, you know, if you're standing on the beach and you
see a hundred foot wave coming at you, you know, just say, I'm done. I'm done.
Because you ain't going to outrun it. You know, and I think that's what they
(33:32):
were thinking is, oh my gosh, I'm done, but I'm alive to tell the tale.
I have to stay alive and deal with the fact that everything I thought was wrong.
And the irony and the beauty of that is that that's really what all of us have to do.
See, God is using this whole narrative to teach us what it means to be redeemed
(33:57):
and born again, because in order to be redeemed, you have have to come to the
same place the apostles came to.
You have to be completely undone. You have to realize that everything you thought was right isn't.
You have to realize that you didn't become worthy of heaven because of anything
you did or anything you thought about or anything that you believed,
(34:21):
you know, that none of that gets you into heaven.
What gets you into heaven is standing before Jesus like Peter did that day when
they were fishing, and Peter's like, yes, Lord, I love you, but I'm not good
enough for you, and you know it. And Jesus says.
Got a job for you. And then he says again, Lord, I love you,
(34:43):
but you know, I'm not good enough for your work. I'm not qualified to serve you.
And Peter gets told again, no, Peter, actually, I think you'll do just fine.
In fact, I'm beginning to feel better about you all the time, you know?
And then the third time he says, look, Peter, don't you get it?
It doesn't matter how much or how little you love me, as long as you love me,
(35:06):
as long as you're in it for the long long haul.
As long as you're committed, I can work with that.
It wasn't what Peter could bring to Jesus that got him the job of being the
leader of the birth church.
It was what he gave up that made him qualified. He died to himself.
(35:30):
And now when Jesus is asking this impulsive, brazen guy guy who's always saying,
hey, I got your back, Jesus.
I got your back when nobody else has got your back. I got news for you, boy.
When you take over, I'll be right there for you to make sure nobody crosses
you the wrong way or anything.
You know, he's just got this super positive attitude about everything.
(35:51):
And so Peter had to be thoroughly broken in order for Jesus to lift him up and
say, now you're ready to lead my church, to feed my sheep.
And Peter's confession that he loves the the Lord has been interpreted a lot of different ways.
But at the end of the day, it isn't about what he told Jesus.
It's about what Jesus told him. And Jesus told it to him after Peter had given up and said, I'm done.
(36:19):
This last three years has been a wild ride. I didn't learn a dang thing.
And Peter's basically being told by Jesus, no, actually, you did.
Learn that in order to be the recipient of all that I have to give you,
you have to empty yourself first.
(36:41):
And there is a saying about the ways that Jesus was told that Peter loved him.
You know, there's pastors, green pastors like I was once upon a time,
the brand new pastors who just came out of Bible school or seminary.
They all preach that sermon where they've just learned that That Peter's word
for love was three different words in Greek, and each one was a descending value.
(37:06):
So, you know, at first Peter says, yes, I love you. Like, I love you, man.
And then the second time is, look, you know, I'm fond of you and that I,
you know, am mildly committed to you.
And the third time he said, okay, look, I'm dedicated to what you stand for.
You know and and what it is is it's the last dregs
(37:30):
of what's left in peter you know
that the he's finally qualified to be everything jesus wants him to be because
he's completely emptied himself i love it i love it and i just keep thinking
the whole time that you're saying this is that that's what we're called to do
too yeah there's a phrase i've been hearing a lot lately And it's,
(37:51):
we all meet at the foot of the cross,
just like Peter, just like the disciples. Yep.
It's when you think you know what's going on when you get into trouble.
It's when you think that you've got it all figured out or that you can save Jesus.
That's when you really got to look at Peter's story, really,
(38:12):
through the whole thing, especially this week.
Yeah, you know, you just gave me a thought. Now, you're probably wondering how
in the world do you help me get to this.
But I think if I was going to add something to my getting out of the boat and
the other guys, maybe Peter's mistake was right before he stepped out of the
boat, he looked over his shoulder and thought, losers.
(38:32):
And then he got out of the boat. Yeah. And maybe that's why Jesus said, yeah, losers.
Yeah, like, hey, watch me. I'll go do this. I mean, you know,
we can only guess, but it would make sense, you know, that Peter is in this
constant struggle against his pride.
And and yet he
was probably less proud than some of the people we've
(38:54):
both been dealing with in our lives lately you know that
we all have these encounters with people whose pride is just off the charts
and and peter was probably nothing like that but but jesus has a view towards
that day by the sea of galilee when he's going to hand over the birth of the
church to peter and his his friends, you know?
(39:15):
Peter, you're not, you haven't unpacked your pride enough, but we're going to get there.
Yeah. So unpack your pride, right?
Yeah. Listener, not you, Pastor Dan. I get you. Yeah. But I got to do it too. Right. Every day.
You know, I could hang up the microphone after we're done and walk away thinking,
(39:37):
wow, I was really good. I pontificated.
And then what would I be? But if I can say with honesty, I'm grateful for all
that I've learned, and I'm grateful for all the gifts and talents that I've developed.
But at the end of the day, I'm most grateful for the Holy Spirit that informs
my words, and I'd be nothing without it.
(40:01):
There's a lot of intelligent people out there that don't say anything worth
hearing because it's not coming from the heart and mind of God.
True. True. Unpack your pride and stay in tune with the Spirit.
Yeah. Check in every day. That's a good word.
I like it. All right.
Well, friends, thank you for listening, and I hope that this holy week is truly
(40:25):
holy for you, and I'll meet you at the foot of the cross.
Music.
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