Resolute!

As I have been seeking, amidst the busyness of daily life, to prepare my heart for Easter I have been impressed afresh by the resoluteness of my Saviour in going to the cross for me.

From all eternity this had been the divine plan since he was “the Lamb slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). His incarnation and his whole life on earth had been focused on the cross. As his footsteps meandered around the Holy Land during the days of his earthly ministry he knew that they would, in his Father’s time, be pointed in the direction of Jerusalem and, more specifically, of Golgotha. Luke tells us that “as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (9:51). This fulfils the prophetic word in one of Isaiah’s Servant Songs—“Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame” (50:7).

As Jesus neared Jerusalem we see this same resolution in a conversation he had with his disciples in Luke 18:31-33—“Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, ‘We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.’” He was unwavering in his determination.

His determination reached its agonizing crescendo beneath the gnarled olive trees in Gethsemene where he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke adds, “An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:42-44).

All this for me!

And it is in the light of his resolute embracing of the cross that he calls me (and you!) to resolutely follow him in a life of sacrificial discipleship. Again Luke brings these two truths together in 9:22-23—“And he said, ‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.’ Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’”