Passover Season
In this episode
Scripture References
Works
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Welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m Emily Maxson here with Greg Uttinger and Rachel Voytek and my son, Ransom, who is very squirrely, so if he bops the microphone you won’t hear it because David will cut it out.
We are approaching Passion Week in the life of Christ and his ministry. I think we’re starting off with John 12 and the anointing. I don’t know if you guys remember the song “Alabaster Box?” There was a popular Christian song when I was a child, the Alabaster Box, that no one will remember unless they listened to the Wow 1997 compilation.
I did actually listen to that CD that you mentioned because I think I may know what song it is, and I definitely liked the Wow music around that time.
I on the other hand was completely unaware of any kind of Christian music around that time that wasn’t 1,000 years old.
Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
That just suddenly struck me as an interesting kind of quotation. “So he went to the house of this guy who had been dead and isn’t anymore and…” That was the miracle last time.
Lazarus had been dead for four days and Jesus had raised him from the dead and then gone off not terribly far away, but far enough away as to not draw attention to himself or push for escalation just yet. That’s coming shortly, like tomorrow after this incident.
They had thought about killing Lazarus, so it’s also demonstrating that Lazarus is still alive. Neither their plots to kill Jesus or Lazarus have succeeded so far, and instead they’re going to have this moment at his house. Again it’s that grounding in history of counting days, showing the people and places, giving us all the historical circumstances of what’s going on.
We’re told elsewhere that the host was a man named Simon, who we don’t know about otherwise.
Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
This is similar to something that happened earlier in Jesus’ ministry. There was an unnamed woman who had a reputation for being a great sinner who came to Jesus while he was at dinner, also at the house of someone named Simon, and did something very similar but there was a lot more crying on his feet and wiping them with her hair. It was more of a repentant thank you.
This has a different meaning, which Jesus is going to explain to us. The gift here is very costly, as Judas is about to tell us.
It was likely that it could have been a family heirloom or even what we would consider like an inheritance, so it was something that normally would have been saved to sustain someone when they didn’t have any other money, or something that had been preserved even for generations in the family. There are many different layers of why this was unusual for her to use.
Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him…
I like how spoilers are not an issue. We have spoilers left and right because people already know the story. “Oh, isn’t this the part where...?” “Yes, it is, be quiet.” He says –
Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence [denarii] and given to the poor?
The Roman penny or denarius was about what one worker working all day would earn, so 300 days’ wages for a common laborer. As you say, that’s a lot of money. We could tag it anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000 depending on inflation and price comparisons.
Or more. If you think about the days off that people take nowadays with weekends and such, 300 days is more than a year’s wages for us. At least here in California the common annual income is I would guess well above $50,000 so, as we keep saying, it was very costly. It would be the equivalent of an expensive car to us, you could say.
Yeah, that’s good. Judas knows exactly how much it would cost and he’s got it down. He says he wants to give it to the poor, but John comments –
This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.
He was the treasurer of the group, and yet he was a thief. And of course Jesus, who knows the hearts of men, knew this and yet he made him treasurer. Outwardly he probably was a pretty good treasurer, as long as you didn’t check his bookkeeping.
Matthew had a record as a bookkeeper, but you can imagine that conversation. “Let’s let the publican keep the books.” “Let’s not do that, shall we? We don’t want to put temptation in front of him – that’s the ticket.” So somehow Judas ended up with the job.
Then Jesus turns to him and the others, because he was not alone in his criticism – others we’re told were involved – Jesus said -
Let her alone. Against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you, but me ye have not always.
Presumably he’s not putting on it a meaning that she did not attend, and if that’s the case then she, of all of the disciples, of all of Jesus’ followers, she’s the one who understood he was about to die and was afraid that she might not be able to get to him afterward to perform the service of anointing the body.
On Easter morning when the other women come to the tomb, she’s not amongst them, even though she lives not that far outside of Jerusalem, so this is her service to Jesus and her recognition of what’s coming, even when the others are still not getting it. Then of course Jesus comments that yes, taking care of the poor is worthy, but there are sometimes other things that are more worthy, like the worship of God.
Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there, and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.
It’s one of those, “Let’s go see the dead man who’s alive. That should be an interesting afternoon.”
Which means a lot of people were there to see what she did as well. I was noting in Mark that Jesus specifically calls what she does a good work. It’s important to note that we think of Judas and the fact that he is sort of the mouthpiece of Satan in this whole narrative, and yet all the disciples side with him in this instance. It’s important for us in any time period to be careful how we color somebody’s actions, because people looked down on her simply for using a lot of money.
Of course, there’s a lot of ulterior motives for Judas there, but Jesus calls her use of lots and lots of money for his worship a good work, and those who oppose her are on Satan’s side in all of this. Just something to note.
That strikes really close to home for a lot of us. We need to be careful what motives we attribute to people, and how dare we tell people how to use their money. Appropriating other people’s money, bringing it under our control, even if only by force of personality, generally is called theft. It’s a thieving spirit that says, “We don’t want you to use your money that way. We have a better way to use it.” And since such people are in practice thieves, we should not be surprised if they in fact plan to steal the money.
You can think here of lots of questionable ministries say 50-60 years ago, where pastors, radio pastors, TV pastors or evangelists want you to give a lot of money, and make you feel guilty for not giving it. Yet later on when people finally get around to checking their books, sometimes the columns don’t balance the way they’re supposed to.
This reminds me this past week David and I decided to rewatch the first American Gospel movie. They were talking and showing clips particularly of Benny Hinn, who was asking for certain amounts of money. He happened to say I think give $1,000 or something, and then they were interviewing his nephew, who is no longer following the teachings of Benny Hinn, and he said, “Yeah, I had $1,000 car payment every month because we could afford it because people were giving all of this to our ministries.”
Just seeing the way that those large quantities of money came in and then went to them – now, of course they can spend the money if they want, but they’re telling people that they’re going to give to God, but the giving to God becomes fancy cars for them so there is a difference there, too. That is not the same thing as giving to the worship of the true God.
But that’s a thing that some people have a hard time understanding, especially if you were raised in that kind of culture. I have no doubt that there were a great many people, particularly older folk, who would have said, “Well, if that’s what God wants him to do then he should do it, because he’s God’s servant and we want to support God’s servants. That’s why we gave the money.”
I think it would be largely the younger folk who would say, “Wait a second. That’s not why we gave the money. We thought they were going to do something evangelistic or at least making room for more people in worship or something.”
“This is not what we had in mind.” People who speak a great deal of caring for the poor often are themselves thieves, as the whole tradition of American welfare well testifies. Anyhow, we could sit here and pound on this for a while. Maybe we should keep going.
But it is an important thing that keeps coming up over again in history, so it is worth stopping to discuss the reality that in a sinful world money is going to be a problem, whether you have too much or too little. We need to be honest about the reality that both are going to continue to be there, and you can never balance out the sheets, so to speak.
Yes. And we’re not going to go through all the gospels verse by verse, but this is a story that I think is neglected and often confused with the other one, so it’s worth spending a little time here.
Something else in passing, speaking of historical context and stuff – and this may be for very new Christians or small children, I don’t know, but sometimes older Christians don’t know – how did she get under the table to wash his feet? Try to picture that sometimes. Sometimes our ignorance of first-century traditions does create complicated embarrassing images if we don’t sort things out. “No, that’s not how it worked.”
In Palestine and most of the Mediterranean world at that time people reclined around a low table with their feet out away from the table. They would lean on the table or their little lounge chair with their left arm because their left hand was reserved for bodily functions and thus should not touch food. Today even in Mideastern countries you really don’t want to be using your left hand to do much of anything.
It’s actually a rule or a law in Islam about what hand to eat with because of all of that in the Middle East. I don’t know that people observe that now, but it actually is a written law in their religion.
I’ve heard that people still get in trouble over not observing it. You eat with your right hand, so she could easily gain access, as could the other woman who came to him earlier, because his feet are out there in the aisle, as it were. Later on when Jesus washes the feet of the disciples, again he didn’t have to get underneath the table to do this. So goodbye to all the paintings of The Last Supper where everyone sits at a table in full Queen Anne furniture staring at the camera.
[laughing] Not even going there. Certain traditions say so, but it doesn’t have to be round to work.
But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away and believed on Jesus.
So they’re still thinking about killing Lazarus, as that will help they think somehow. They never get around to it.
The Bible is such fertile ground for storytelling that it’s very easy to imagine what happened behind the scenes and in the gaps. I think we probably shouldn’t make up stories because then we get people believing them and factoring them into their theology, but it would be a nice sit-com, or a serious drama I suppose, to try to follow the assassins sent by the Sadducees trying to get Lazarus, and see how many ways God can make them fail foolishly and miserably anyway.
Although in some ways it seems that they’re talking about wanting to kill Lazarus, and then immediately we see Jesus step in the way, in a sense, and enter Jerusalem and take all of their focus off of Lazarus and put it on himself. So it’s almost as though, “Nope, you are not going after mine. You’re going to come directly after me because I can handle it.”
He does that a good deal actually throughout the gospels. He’ll slap his disciples around verbally now and then, but when the wolves start going after his sheep he’s right there. He’s always defending. “What are you talking to them about? What did you just say to them? What stupid question are you asking them?” Then later he may say, “Okay guys, you should have been able to deal with that one.”
Which is why we admire the hero that steps between the enemy and the one that he’s trying to attack.
Yes. The next day – and you have to look at all the gospels and do the reckoning and count backwards and all that good stuff – but the next day is the 10th of Abib or Nisan, the day the Passover lambs are being chosen. We are now entering Passion Week and we’re counting down.
So while the Jews are looking over sheep in the temple courtyard and buying their own little Passover lamb that they’re going to watch for the next four days, Jesus enters the city. And for the next four days he is going to be watched, examined, cross-examined, criticized, and poked at.
One by one, every group who’s hostile to him backs off admitting, “We not only can’t find any fault, we’re not going to talk to him anymore because we come away looking like idiots.” Then they will deliver him to the Sanhedrin and the high priest, then to Pilate, Herod, and Pilate again, and one by one, except where they cheat, they admit there is no fault – without spot and blemish, just like the lambs.
One of the pastors who spoke at our church recently reminded me of something. You know how you know something, but it doesn’t quite click into focus until someone says, “Hey, look at that.” A triumphal parade like the Romans had – you’re a Roman general and you’ve won a great battle and you petition the Senate for a triumphal parade. Not everybody got one, and if you had any enemies in the Senate you might be denied even when you felt you deserved one, but there was a particular format.
It involved parading the treasures that you’d taken, the slaves you’d captured, your own army, and you come at the end in your chariot. All the city comes out and everybody celebrates and there’s much pomp and much glory and excitement and praise, because you are a military victor. That’s the background for what’s happening here.
Remember, Rome is watching. They’re always watching, not just from the Tower of Antonia but they no doubt have their spies, their informants, and people out in the crowd watching to see what’s going on. Shortly here we’ll work up to the details, but Jesus comes and the Romans take note and probably more than anything laugh at him.
“He’s on a donkey? His train is a bunch of peasants from Galilee? They’re throwing down their clothes on the ground. They’re swinging palm branches. They’re singing religious songs. I don’t think this guy is a threat to anybody.”
If the governor heard anything, and he probably did – Pilate was not an idiot – he’d think, “Well, that’s weird. Anything else?” “Yeah, prices on your beef are up today.” It just wasn’t that big of a deal the way he did it.
Jesus is still in Bethany, which is on the far side of the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath Day’s journey from Jerusalem, and he sends a couple disciples to a location that only he knows nearby, a little village crossroads. He says, “There’s going to be a donkey and her colt tied. Go get them. And if anyone says anything, say ‘The Lord has need of them’ and they’ll send the donkey,” and that’s what happens. They go and start untying the donkey and people standing nearby say, “Hey, what are you doing loosing the donkey?” “Uh, the Lord has need of him.” “Oh, okay.” Some people have suggested that Jesus arranged this ahead of time. There’s nothing that says that. It seems to be simply Jesus’ divine sovereignty.
As we watch this Passion week unfold from here at the beginning to the resurrection, Jesus – not only as regards his eternal deity as the one who runs the universe, being God and all, but also in his humanity – he is the one in charge. He’s bringing things together. He moves things along. He pushes for escalation at just the right moment, and yet his divine sovereignty superintends everything.
He supplies the donkey and with divine omniscience knows the donkey is there and sends his guys to get the donkey with the ticket, “The Lord wants them,” God wants them, Messiah wants them.
“Okay, well, take him. If he could come back that would be great but, you know, if the Lord wants him it’s the Lord’s.” They put Jesus on the donkey and throw their clothes over the donkey and him on top, and they start going.
There are the people who had come out to see Lazarus and to see the feast, and apparently a lot of them had hung around, having nothing better to do. It is Passover season. It’s one of the required feasts and the one most attended. We’re not exactly told what happened if you didn’t attend Pentecost or Tabernacles, but if you didn’t attend Passover you were excommunicated if you were an adult male, so this was the required feast. If you were Jewish and in the land anyplace, you were supposed to come. Already a lot of people were there.
Of course, the city of Jerusalem is getting ready. It would be common for people to open their homes to pilgrims, starting with your own family and friends, but then reaching out to whoever might need a place to stay, so some people were there. There were the people with Jesus and then more pilgrims are coming down the highway from Galilee in the north and to Jerusalem. It’s into this stream of people that Jesus directs the donkey, and people begin to recognize him.
It was the tradition that the people of Jerusalem would go out to greet the pilgrims when they knew a fresh wave was coming. They had nothing else to do, I suppose, and they would start singing back and forth. The songs they sang were from the book of Psalms. It’s a series of psalms called the Great Hallel, Psalms 113-118.
Psalm 118 is very important for our purposes so I’m going to read at least some of the more relevant words, and they should sound familiar.
Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord:
The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.
Peter in one of his sermons before the Sanhedrin will say, “The stone is Jesus. You were the builders. You set him at naught. You killed him. God has made him the headstone of the corner of his kingdom, of his church. He did this by raising him from the dead,” so that’s the context for this verse.
This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
The day that the Lord made, the Lord’s day, is the day of resurrection. Then the psalm goes on –
Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity.
Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord: we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.
If you’re familiar at all with the triumphal entry and the various accounts of it, you know that that’s more or less what the people of Jerusalem and the pilgrims sang, particularly the pilgrims. The people of Jerusalem and the pilgrims would antiphonally sing back and forth the various parts of the psalms. The psalms were written by and large to be sung that way.
Then the pilgrims start innovating on the song: “Hosanna. Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. Peace on earth. Glory in the highest.” Each of the gospels renders it a little bit differently, but they start building on this. Meanwhile, the crowds are plucking palm leaves off the trees and laying them before Jesus, and they’re taking off their outer garments and laying them down before Jesus so he can walk on them.
Two images here – first, the clothes represent them. They are laying down their bodies symbolically to be Jesus’ pathway, to be whatever Jesus needs them to be. They are totally giving themselves to him. That’s what the symbol says. With the palm leaves they’re elevating him into the sky. The donkey is walking on the treetops. He’s a heavenly figure.
This is all very exciting. Each of the gospel writers reminds us of the prophecy of Zechariah that said, “Your king comes to you humble, meek, riding upon a donkey,” but for the disciples it doesn’t click with them at that point.
The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record. For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.
The gospels contain more or less what Jesus does over the next few days, and we have to lay them side-by-side and look. If you just take each at face value you might miss what chronologically is actually happening. The first day he goes in and looks around. He actually doesn’t do anything the first day except to look and to pass judgement and to weep over Jerusalem. Also important is when he arrives at the city gates or near them, the people of Jerusalem are a little confused and they call out to the pilgrims, “Who is this?” and they say, “Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet.”
Oops. They’d been hailing him as the Son of David, the king who comes in the name of the Lord, but when they look face-to-face at the people from Jerusalem, the big city sophisticated religious types of people, they back down. They do not claim him Messiah. They do not talk about the kingdom of David. They say Nazareth. “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? The Messiah comes from Bethlehem.” They do not call him the king of the Jews, let alone the Son of God. They call him a prophet. It’s better than nothing, but not by a whole lot. They have backed way down. Jesus weeps, and someplace in here John puts it right here.
For the first time some Greek folks, some Gentiles, come and talk to Philip. Philip is a Hellenistic Jew. His name is Greek, a lover of horses, and he comes and finds Andrew, whose name is Greek and means ‘the man.’ They go to Jesus and say, “Hey, there are some Greeks that want to talk to you,” and Jesus’ response to them no doubt is surprising. We’re never told exactly how he answered the Greeks, but this moves him very deeply – starting in John 12:23 –
And Jesus answered them saying, The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?
This drives it home. He’s come to save the world. Here’s the world in the person of these Gentiles, these Greek-speaking people, and it drives it home. “Oh, it’s nearly time. I’m going to be put in the ground. I’m going to come forth. I’m going to bear much fruit.
Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.
The emotion begins to overwhelm him, the emotion he’ll feel in Gethsemane. It’s not the fear of death but the horror of being separated from his Father. “What shall I say?”
Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.
Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.
At this point we’ll leave John behind and go to the Synoptics. That night Jesus goes back to Bethany. Each night he goes to Bethany. He doesn’t stay in Jerusalem. This is significant. This is God incarnate and he’s lived and stayed in Jerusalem many, many times. He probably had some houses that he could visit if he wanted to. John, the beloved disciple, had a house in Jerusalem, so there would have been room there for him, but in the past he’s stayed at Bethany oftentimes, and now every night he goes back to the Mount of Olives or all the way to Bethany. God is withdrawing his presence from Jerusalem.
The next day he comes into town and the crowds are not with him, and Jesus is hungry. Apparently he got up and left, and maybe Mary and Martha didn’t fix anything for him. Maybe they were still asleep, or maybe he’d stayed on the mountain rather than in the town directly. Anyhow, he hasn’t eaten anything and he’s hungry and he sees a fig tree, and fig trees are leafy.
Before I learned about fig trees – how many things would we settle if we simply Googled ‘fig tree’ or whatever we’re concerned with?
Well, there were a lot of years when people didn’t have Google, so if you didn’t live in an agricultural area there would be a lot of things in the Bible that would confuse you, both about plants and animals.
This is so. The Bible does assume that you know some things. Also notice it assumes that children would know some things and that you don’t have to hide them from them. “Oh daddy, the rams are jumping on the sheep. Can we go out and watch?” “Sure, dear.”
But here, fig trees by the time they have leaves are supposed to already have fruit. That’s how God designed them, so he sees a leafy fig tree in the distance and thought, “Food. Breakfast,” and goes over there and there’s nothing. It’s a fruitless tree. It has all the signs of being well and healthy and alive, but there’s nothing there, and he curses the fig tree.
Jesus is not throwing a temper tantrum. As God, it’s his creation and he can do whatever he wants with it, and this is a tree that is not living up to the function he designed for it, but there’s something far more important. A fig tree throughout the Old Testament is a symbol of Israel, particularly of Israel’s peace. The age of Messiah is one where every man sits under his vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid, and here’s a fig tree that’s doing nothing.
He told a parable before about a fig tree that was fruitless, and told how the gardener asked for more time and was given it, and then the time ran out. So these are the kinds of things that need to come to mind.
He curses the fig tree and he goes on. If you just read one of the gospels you may get the idea that it withered while they were watching, but actually they catch it the next day.
He goes into the temple again. Remember he did this at the beginning of his ministry, and everything that he had dealt with is back in place. The moneychangers, the animals for sacrifice – it’s become Stuff-Mart all over again.
It’s probably worse because it’s the Passover, so everybody needs a lamb. It’s supposed to be all the men of the Jewish people, so I can imagine it’s like going in and cleaning something and then coming back and it’s 10 times worse because it’s Christmas time and the stores are full of crowds and all these random things that they’re trying to convince you that you should buy.
I just got a mental glimpse of the little knickknacks and trinkets they’re selling to commemorate this Passover.
All that kind of stuff – little food items because we’re sure you’re hungry. We’re taking care of you.
Jesus goes into the temple and sees this and again is displeased with it. Over the last couple years as he’s come to Jerusalem at Passover time and for the other feasts, he no doubt saw it coming back into place piece by piece, but I think you’ve just explained very well why this time particularly. Expectation was building that Messiah would be coming. We already see that a lot of people are very excited. There was probably already the feeling of, “This is going to be a good year for business.”
Jesus has looked around and he’s seen all of this and he overthrows the tables of the moneychangers, the seats of those who sold doves and all that, everything he had done before, and drives them out and takes command of the temple precincts and begins teaching on the temple steps and porches.
It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
It’s not just that they were performing the right service in the wrong place. They were stealing from people. Yes, it was sacrilege, but on top of sacrilege it was theft. They were stealing from people and stealing from those who had come the farthest and those who were most truly dedicated to God. They were ripping off the flock and, as we said earlier, Jesus does not appreciate that, so he tells them to get out of here. The blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them.
Meanwhile, some of the little children who had been around and had seen all of this start singing the same kind of thing, singing the chorus from Psalm 118 – “Hosanna to the Son of David.” The chief priests hear this and they are very upset.
Just in passing, this does justify children singing in church where people can see them and hear them. It also justifies singing choruses. It also justifies beginning with inspired lyrics and innovating on them to make them more New Testament – just saying.
Before we go on, a theme I assume we did before but I don’t remember is that of the high priest coming to check out a defiled house. Rachel, do you want to tell us about lepers’ houses?
Sure. You can correct me if I get it wrong. In Leviticus we have the prescription for different things to do for leprosy, which at that time was not the leprosy of today, but it could also infect items, walls, things like that. So if somebody had this spreading infection of some sort, some sort of discoloration or growth on the wall – is that a good assessment of what we would call it?
They would have to go tell the priest, and the priest would have to come and examine it. It would sort of be like, “We’ll watch it to see if it grows or if it doesn’t, because we’re trying to figure out if it is leprosy.” They would have to check it multiple times and if, after a certain point, it was found to be truly leprous and not something they could get rid of, then they would have to basically abandon the house because leprosy and its ongoing spread was a sign of the spread in effect of sin, particularly because it was something that made you unclean and unable to go worship.
It was not that literally there was sin in the spots, but rather association with it kept you from being able to worship the Lord, so you would not want your very home structure to be a place that is unclean because then you would never be able to go worship. It’s the idea of something being too infected so that you have to abandon it completely.
And you not only abandon it, but you destroy it until not one stone is left on the other. Jesus examined the temple at the beginning of his ministry, patched it up, repaired it, and here he comes at the end and he does another patch job, and yet in a chapter or two he’s going to say, “God is ready to abandon this house. Your house is left too desolate.”
It’s that theme that we see in the Old Testament that is particularly discussed in Daniel of the abomination that makes desolate, which happens multiple times through the sin of God’s people, that he abandons a house that he has built with them. That will come to final culmination in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, but it begins here where the one true high priest examines the temple and finds it utterly desolate because of their abominations.
Yes, very good. Now with regard to the children, Jesus commends the children and rebukes the Pharisees with the words –
Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea, have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?
I was speaking in church this last Sunday and I said something gospel-ish and a number of ladies in the back said, “Amen!” and after them one little infant voice, “Amen!” I was able to say, “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise.” God accepts the praise of very small children. That’s a topic that someday we probably should go back and revisit; otherwise, we’re going to have to wait until we get to Finney and the Finney revivals.
That’s one of the things I’ve loved, is that David encourages everyone in our congregation when he says “Amen” to say “Amen” after him. It’s one of the things that the kids have been able to learn. “This is a place where we can very exuberantly say amen!”
It’s almost like at times if they’re paying attention they’re waiting for it, and the voices you hear the loudest are the small children who are very excited to be able to “amen!” although sometimes he says it when it’s not the time for everybody else to say it, but the small children will still go “Amen!” It’s sweet.
Yes it is, and God receives it as sweet. There’s none of this mythical age of accountability where God shoves children aside into watching Veggie Tales or whatever because they’re not mature enough to participate in real worship yet. We don’t know how old these children were, but they were young enough to be an offense to the Pharisees.
Also it shows that there’s an interactive-ness to worship as well. It’s not something that we simply sit there quietly and allow to roll over us, and not that we want to be overly theatrical but it is something for people of all ages to be able to stay engaged in and to give voice, because we should be responding to the Lord using our bodies as well as our minds and such to worship together.
That night Jesus goes back to Bethany and lodged there. In the morning he comes back and the fig tree is withered up and the disciples say, “The fig tree is withered up!” and they’re amazed. Jesus says –
Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea it shall be done.
With “this mountain” he’s pointing at Moriah, at the temple mount, which lays before them. So we have the image of the fig tree – it’s cursed, it’s going to bear no fruit. We have the image of God’s mountain, and if you pray, he tells the disciples, that it be cast into the Gentile sea, God will hear that too. In other words, Jesus is writing out a prescription for the end of Jerusalem and for its function as the Holy City and the place where God meets with man. It’s a leprous house. It’s a fig tree with no fruit. And it’s a mountain about to be cast into the sea.
New Testament Christians are to pray that God would hasten these things, because once Jesus dies and rises again, apostate Israel becomes the chief persecutor of God’s people and the counterfeit bride that tries to take her place. So God’s people were to pray that he would bring down Babylon and exalt the new Jerusalem.
That might be a good stopping point for tonight. We’ll come back next week with further adventures in Passion Week.
We’ll look at the three questions that Jesus gets asked to try to rattle him, and how he completely silences his enemies, and his further condemnations against Jerusalem.
How about singing psalms? Lest anyone mistake, I value the singing of psalms, especially if you’re going to write uninspired hymns. Your mind better be soaked in scripture, and the place to begin is with the psalms, to learn how God himself wrote worship music. That’s kind of important if you think you’re ready to write it.
Recommendation: Singing psalmsIt’s one thing to say, “We don’t need the psalms anymore because we want to write songs that use the name of Jesus.” There’s some spiritual logic there, but that doesn’t mean that you jump right into being an adult. You still need to grow through the process of childhood and adolescence and learn what it means to be a grown-up hymn writer by learning how God wrote psalms.
They are about Jesus. The whole book of Psalms is about Jesus. The sooner we learn that the better. As we sing them, we are singing about Jesus. Now, if you don’t see that then I suggest you go to your pastor and say, “Hey, how about a nice series on the psalms? You could even do it in the evening service, and show us how each psalm is about Jesus. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful sermon series?”
I have to put in here that my David actually has been doing that. When he first started the evening study he said, “I know what I want to do. I want to go through the psalter in the evening study,” so we finished the first book of the psalter and then have taken a break to do Joshua. He basically said that we need to know the psalms better and we need to be able to see how every psalm is about Jesus.
I approve of this recommendation. Also it reminded me of Isaac Watts who titled his hymnbook “Psalms of David imitated in the language of the New Testament.” He purposely wanted his hymns to be based in the psalms.
Some people were still critical and refused to sing, so the little tweak in one of his hymns was, “Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God; but children of the heav'nly King may speak their joys abroad.” We’re always nice to one another as Christians, aren’t we?
I do. I mentioned that we watched the first American Gospel movie this past week, which I definitely recommend that if you’ve never seen it or even if you have, because I watched it again and went, “Oh, I don’t remember that part of the movie.”
It was inspired by the fact that I listened to a podcast by Elisa Childers and she was interviewing the director of the American Gospel movies, from which I found out they’re making a third one that’s going to be a 13-episode series more particularly focusing on Bethel Redding and the New Apostolic Reformation, which is coming out of there.
Most of their conversation was about what the New Apostolic Reformation is, what are the crazy things that Bethel teaches, particularly what Bill Johnson says. It basically took some of the things from the first American Gospel movie and was expanding them because they have continued to expand their heresies and their influence.
The one thing that was really striking to me, which actually links back to what you just said, Greg, was that Bethel songs are one of the things that has spread their influence in lots of different places. Apparently the top 5 Christian songs most sung right now are all in some way connected to Bethel.
Bill Johnson has a quote of saying, “We will get them to sing what they will believe in five years, basically infiltrate people with our theology through our songs, and then they will start to think in the ways we want them to think.”
Because once you love a song you will not tolerate it being criticized theologically.
There’s an old Latin phrase – “Lex orandi, lex credenda” – the law of prayer is the law of belief. It’s describing how the patterns of your worship shape your mind. I don’t like that being used against the flock of God.
No, so I recommend the podcast just partly because a lot of the things they teach do infiltrate our churches and our thinking because they’re very influential. Where I live is I think 70 miles from Redding so they definitely influence us here, but it’s all over. Also their project needs support and things like that, so anybody that wants to watch any of the American Gospel movies is helpful to them to get support.
My recommendation is going to be staying hydrated. Bad things happen when you don’t do that.
Thank you both so much for this conversation. Thank you for bearing with me as I have dealt with a squirrely baby. He did not go to sleep, by the way, in case you were wondering. Through the magic of wireless headphones I did get to hear what you were saying, which was great.
Thank you also to David, our producer and my lawfully-wedded husband, not to be confused with David who is Rachel’s lawfully-wedded husband.
Thank you also to our financial supporters. We appreciate you keeping the show rolling. If you would like to join the ranks of our financial supporters, Dear Listener, you can visit patreon.com/haltingtowardzion. And if you’d like to get in touch with us or just send such us a message on email, that would be [email protected]. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you next time.