Check out this collection of posts celebrating Easter

Journey to Easter: The Upper Room

He will show you a large upper room, all furnished. Make preparations there. Luke 22:12 NIV

Jesus was not a victim of circumstance. He was not swept up by the events around Him. Every moment of His entire life was part of a divine plan laid down before time began. Each stop on the journey to Easter was purposeful and planned. The first stop is the Upper Room.

I live in a small town where the major industry is an oil refinery. Periodically, the company does major maintenance projects, bringing in scores of outside labor to help. One is going on right now, and an estimated 1700 workers are in town, a town of under 7000. Because this happens regularly, plenty of people have small homes, garage apartments, or even extra rooms to rent out to accommodate the short-term workforce.

This is not unlike Jerusalem at Passover.

Every year, Jews made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. The population of the city swelled to a million or more. All of these pilgrims needed places to share the meal and remember their deliverance. Jesus and His followers were from Galilee so they needed a place to celebrate the Passover.

But this Passover was like no other. In fact, Jesus said, “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,” Luke 22:15. These would be the last quiet moments Jesus had with those closest to Him. He had to prepare them, to comfort and to encourage them. He also had cautions and instructions. All of it needed to be delivered away from the crowds and without the religious authorities bursting in to arrest Him.

Jesus made sure they had that opportunity. This stop in the Upper Room afforded them the necessary seclusion and security. Only Peter, John and the owner of the house knew where He would eat the Passover, so Judas couldn’t tip off the high priest. In fact, Judas couldn’t even leave until Jesus dismissed him.

As we journey to Easter, do we need moments of seclusion, away from the press of the crowd and the hassles that we face? Do we need to hear the cautions and instructions? Do we need the encouragement and the comfort? Do we need to prepare ourselves for what comes next? Do we need to remember and celebrate the deliverance we’ve experienced?

Yes? Then we need to stop in the Upper Room.

Next stop, the Garden

Mount of Olives: Winning the Battle

By Paula Wiseman

And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. Luke 22:39

The Mount of Olives rises 2700 feet (826 m) above the Kidron Valley. It is part of a three-peak ridge that was at one time covered in olive trees. There was a garden there. Every spring we recount the story of what happened in that garden, but it is usually just a stop along the way of a bigger story, the Easter story.

Today, let’s take a few minutes and climb one more mountain and consider what took place–and what is yet to take place–on the Mount of Olives.

It is a place Jesus resorted to often.

Luke tells us it was His custom to go to the Mount of Olives. I can imagine a visit each time He was in Jerusalem. Maybe it began when he climbed the hill with his father as a boy. In this passage, it was a place where He poured out His heart to God. We need a place, a familiar comfortable place to meet God regularly.

It was a place of sorrow and struggle.

In some ways, the battle for our salvation was won on that mountain in the intensive prayer session. Scripture doesn’t give the specifics, but I wonder if the temptation Jesus faced that night was even more strident and grueling than His time in the wilderness. In the midst of that struggle, He knew His closest friends would fail Him and abandon Him. The crowds He would soon face wouldn’t grasp what He was doing or the implications of their call for His blood. Although not as intense, we face our own moments of sorrow and struggle alone. We have faced our share of battles that have touched the deepest parts of our soul.

It was a place of deep communion.

Jesus reached out to His Father, and God sent a ministering angel to strengthen Christ. When we seek God’s face in the depths of our anguish, He hears and He sends strength and comfort.

It was a place of resolve and victory.

By the time Jesus rose to His feet, He was ready to face everything that lay ahead with steadfast resolve. He never wavered. There was no hesitation in His steps, no fear or uncertainty in His voice. Evidence of his victory came weeks later, when His friends watched Him return to the Father’s right hand from that very mountain. Zechariah tells us He will return to that spot yet again to put the final seal on His victory and receive His kingdom. That reality should strengthen our resolve. The victory is already won.

There are other mountains in Scripture besides the ones we’ve discussed. Moriah. Carmel. Tabor. Pisgah. Ebal. And others. Each one stands out from the surrounding landscape. Each one unique, both in the perspective it offers and in the experience of the climb. Perhaps your curiosity is piqued now. Even better, I hope your hunger and longing to see, to know, to experience all the mountain offers won’t let you rest until you climb the next one.

Next week is Thanksgiving here in the US.

I’ll be back the following week as we turn our hearts and our thoughts toward Advent.

Catch up on the Mountains series

When God Told Jesus ‘No’

By Paula Wiseman

And He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” Mark 14:36

In some ways, this was the moment when our salvation was won. Yes, Jesus still had to physically go through the suffering and death, but during these moments in a quiet peaceful garden, He resolved to face an anguish we do not have the capacity to grasp. Knowing that in the coming hours, His divine foreknowledge would become experience, and faced with all the horrors of sin and judgment and the hopelessness of being forsaken by the Father with whom He enjoyed an incomprehensible oneness, Jesus asked God to take the cup away.

And God said no.

I wonder if our familiarity with the story, or conversely, our tendency to see it as a small detail in a greater narrative, leads us to read through the account of Jesus in the garden. Take a little while to linger here.

Notice the awful price our sin required. The spiritual, mental, and emotional ordeal outweighed even the physical suffering Jesus would soon endure. We focus on the crucifixion, on the pain of the scourging… It was so much more than bearing our sins. He became sin, the very embodiment of sin. The holy, perfect, beloved Son became everything the Father hated.

Consider the love God has for us. John says, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1a) The NIV says the Father “lavished” that love on us. It chokes me up even as I write this. He willed, and was willing to endure this to ensure we could be redeemed from our rebellion. Because of His great love for us.

While God didn’t remove the cup, He supplied what Jesus needed to drink it. Jesus demonstrated a supernatural peace, strength, and resolve during His trial, suffering, and death. When God tells us no, it is always with grace. Remember His answer to Paul, “My grace is sufficient.”

Jesus Himself knows what it is like for God to answer a prayer with ‘no.’ He knows what it is to take burdens and fears to God in honest, vulnerable prayer, and to have God say no. But Jesus also shows the utmost confidence in God’s wisdom and perfect plan. Whatever God’s will required of Him, He was committed to doing. Even if that meant the terrible experience of the cross.

Jesus’s surrender to His Father’s will was vindicated. If we meet the ‘no’ with the confidence in and submission to God’s will, ours will be, too.

When has God told you ‘no’? What did you learn? How did it impact your faith?

She Turned

By Paula Wiseman

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him, “Rabboni!” (which is to say, Teacher). John 20:16

She turned.

From fear to boldness.
From confusion to understanding.
From an abstract idea about resurrection to concrete evidence of its reality.
From inconsolable grief to unparalleled joy.
From past to future.

The risen Christ has called to us as well.

Have we responded?
Have we turned?

Have I responded?
Have I turned?

Easter Monday

By Paula Wiseman

It’s Monday, but we often live like it’s Saturday.

Oh, some live like it’s the weekend, no doubt. That’s not what I mean.

Jesus was crucified on Friday.

Saturday was fear-filled, anxiety-ridden, and steeped in uncertainty.

But it’s not Saturday.

Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday, so we’ll never have to live through a Saturday like that again. Ever.

We live in a post-Resurrection day. A Monday.

We have hope. We have victory. We have proof God keeps His promises.

Monday. Not Saturday.

He is risen. He is risen, indeed.

This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Acts 2:32

Still Risen

By Paula Wiseman

Jesus is still risen.

All the joy and hope from Easter is still here today. And every day

It doesn’t get packed away with the Easter baskets until next year.

We don’t have to go back to business as usual.

He is risen.

He is risen indeed.