Wicked Wednesday

Horrible Hump Day

Fire up the Flux Capacitor for Jerusalem during Passion Week. Specifically for Wednesday. The biographers of Jesus give us nothing but crickets about what the Lord did that day. Most likely He hung out at Lazarus’ house in Bethany.

However something very horrible happened on this Hump Day. Dr. Luke tells us this was the day Judas Iscariot and the Jewish leadership colluded to kill Christ. 

This is Wicked Wednesday. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s back up and take a running start at this story.

God’s Plan for Passion Week

It would be VERY easy to ignore Jesus’ eschatological (that's a two-dollar seminary term for "the end of time") teaching at the temple in Luke 21 as we turn the page to chapter 22.  But they are VERY much related.  

Don’t forget that Christ taught that God has a grand, elaborate, and very precise plan.  Not only is He in total control of that eventual and unavoidable day of judgment, but He also has a grip on the events of Passover week.  Call it a death grip.

As a matter of fact, we see that God set the supernatural agenda for Jesus’ Passion in Scripture centuries before.  Luke describes how “the Feast of the Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover” (v1).  This is the annual festival God commanded to commemorate His liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.  

The Passover and the Passion

Moses described the first Passover in detail in Exodus 12-13.  Each family was to kill a lamb and spread its blood on the front door.  When the destroyer went from house-to-house killing every first born male, he would pass over houses painted with the blood of the lamb.  

In preparation for their quick escape from Egypt, God’s chosen people would eat only bread without leaven.  There was no time for it to rise and there was no time to lose.  They must move fast once Pharaoh lets them leave.  

The Ultimate Passover

What we see in Luke 22 is the celebration of the Ultimate Passover!  The Perfect Passover Lamb would die.  His Perfect Blood would be spilled and cover us from destruction!  What Moses wrote a couple of thousands of years before foreshadowed this week in Jerusalem.

The Axis of Evil

Luke describes how the ultimate Axis of Evil came together on this very Wicked Wednesday.  “The chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put Him to death” (v2).  The chief priests were made up mostly of Sadducees, the religious liberals.  The scribes were predominantly Pharisees, the religious legalists.  

They hated each other.  But these enemies found one thing they could agree on.  They had a common enemy.  Jesus must be eliminated.  He must be killed.  

Paralyzed by the Polls

Public opinion paralyzed these religious leaders.  The good doctor writes that “they feared the people” (v2).  They clearly understood that Jesus had won the crowd with His amazing entrance into the city and His teaching of the temple.  

Meanwhile, their approval ratings are in the toilet. But they were unwilling to make a difficult choice because of the fear of the people.  So they plotted to wait until Jesus was alone in order to take Him out.  But how would they be able to do that without starting a riot?

Satan Enters Judas

In verse three we see the next two partners in the Axis of Evil come together.  Satan himself enters Judas Iscariot.  The serpent who began it all in the garden had taken possession of one of Jesus’ closest followers. It may come as no surprise that Judas was one who handled the money.  

Satan entered Judas because it was easy.  Judas’ own sin and duplicity opened the door for the Devil to walk right in.  What a powerful reminder to do everything our power to confess our own sin in order to keep our heart soft toward our Savior.  Our enemy is constantly looking for his next Judas.

Solving the "Jesus Problem"

In verses 4-6, we now witness all four partners of the Axis of Evil conspiring together.  Judas sneaks away to meet with the chief priests and the commanders of the temple police force.  They brainstorm how they might eliminate their “Jesus problem.”  

Eventually, they come up with a plan.  Judas will tip them off when and where Jesus will be away from the crowd.  He’ll provide invaluable eyes-on-target intel they can use to move on.  

And don’t forget the price.  Thirty pieces of silver.  This was the price of a slave or an ox (Ex 21:32).  In case you’re wondering, God hinted at that very price tag back in Zechariah 11:12-13. 

Flipping the Script

You see, despite all of the conniving by this sinister conspiracy, God is in complete control of these events.  The chief priests, scribes, Satan, and Judas have no idea that He is actually using their evil hearts to pull off His jaw-dropping plan of salvation.  

God will flip the script.  He’ll turn the worst crime in history into His greatest blessing. 

If this is the ultimate Passover and they are the ultimate Axis of Evil, then this is the ultimate expression of that incredible truth Paul wrote to the Romans.  "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose" (Rom 8:28).

You Mean Evil, God Means Good

It’s the same idea that Joseph mentions back in Genesis.  His brothers finally had enough of Joe being their dad’s favorite and sold him to slave traders to get him out of their hair.  Little did they realize how God would use their own wicked plot to eventually save their own hides.

When a massive drought results in a critical shortage of food back home, Joe’s brothers hit the road for Egypt to find something to eat.  The next thing you know, they’re standing in front of the second most powerful person in the country…who just happened to be...yeah, you guessed it...their little brother!  Gulp.

This would be the moment that most of us who’ve been bullied by big brothers would have been waiting for.  But not Joe.  He sees God’s plan in everything that has happened.  “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive" (Gen 50:20).

Passion Week Putty

Which points us back to Wicked Wednesday of Passion Week.  Religious power brokers, a disciple defector, and the satanic snake would seem to be an unbeatable combination.  What appears to be an unstoppable Axis of Evil is just putty in the hands of our Almighty God!

It may be Wicked Wednesday, but God is still in control.  He’s still on the throne.  As a matter of fact, He specializes in reversing curses no matter the day of the week.  Don’t believe me?  Just wait until Sunday and swing by the Jerusalem cemetery.

©2017 

Jay Jennings

When the Going Gets Tough

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Legendary football coach Knute Rockne used these words to focus his team when their backs were against the wall. We’re all pretty good when things are easy. We’re all winners when life is going our way. We’re all superstars when the Big Mo is wearing our team’s jersey. But what happens when opposition rears its ugly head? What happens when things get hard? When the going gets tough, does the tough get going…in the opposite direction? That’s because resistance reveals resolve. Do I cut and run when I hit hostility? Do I allow the enemy to get me off my game plan? 

That’s exactly what happened to the children of God just when they were getting started rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. Ezra 4:1-5 takes us to the Promised Land to witness Israelite enthusiasm turn to apathy. One minute they’re throwing the loudest party the land has ever seen (Ez 3:11, 13). They worship God for His goodness as they lay the foundation for Temple 2.0. The very next minute they’re discouraged, afraid, and frustrated thanks to Samaritan sabotage. 

The big worship shindig was so loud that “the sound was heard far away” (Ez 3:11, 13). It apparently got the attention of “the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin” (v1). The author makes it clear from the get-go that these folks are bad news. They are the enemy. They are the opposition. So who are these guys? They’re Samaritans. Let’s crank up the WABAC machine for a little history lesson. In 722 BC, the Assyrian superpower steamrolled the ten tribes of Jewish northern kingdom and hauled them off into captivity. They did just take them as slaves back to places like Nineveh but also shipped folks from other parts of their kingdom. Flip over to 2 Kings for a list of the folks the Assyrians sent to dilute those still in the land. “And the king of Assyria brought people form Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of of Samaria instead of the people of Israel” (2Ki 17:24). Eventually this stew of cultures and religions cook up some goofy pagan hybrid of worship that incorporates a little bit of this, a little bit of that, including a smidge of Jewish burnt offerings.

Almost 3,000 years later, this garbage is still going on. No, most of us aren’t building Asherah poles in our backyards or worshiping Baal in the basement. Folks who say they follow Jesus also sprinkle in a little bit New Age stuff here and little bit of Oprah over there. And we also worship such 21st century idols as cash, careers, cars, and kids while squeezing in just a little bit of time for Christ if we don’t feel like sleeping in on Sunday morning. Let’s be careful not to become modern day Samaritans.

After hearing the big throw-down on the temple mount, the Samaritans knew they had to do something to shut down this Jewish comeback. As Barney Fife would say, “Nip it. Nip it in the bud!” That’s when “they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, ‘Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to Him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here’” (v2). While this might sound all well and good, remember how Ezra describes them as “adversaries” in the previous verse (v1). Had they worshiped the same God as the Israelites? Well, if sort of. If you squint hard enough you could kinda, sorta come to that conclusion. But they also worshiped every other god and goddess like they were in some sort of Golden Corral buffet of dieties. Let’s face it, they were simply pretending to be all nicey-nice in order to execute the Samaritan sabotage.

The Z man and the rest of the Jewish leaders see right through their smarmy, Eddie Haskel-like approach. They shut the Samaritans down before they can say another word. “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us” (v3). Do you think Zerubbabel was being more than just a little bit rude to turn down the Samaritan offer to help? On top of not trusting their motives, he knew full well that it was because of idolatry that God sent His people into captivity in the first place (2Ki 17:18; 23:26-27). If Zerubbabel had anything to do with it, he would do everything in his power to keep it from happening again. Good leaders learn from history. 

But the Samaritans didn’t just shrug their shoulders and walk away to bother somebody else. “Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose” (v4). If they weren’t able to infiltrate the construction project from the inside, they had a few other tricks up their sleeve. They demoralized and deflated the Jews. They put fear in their hearts to put down their tools and stop building. They even greased the palms of the foremen and engineers on the job site to keep the project from ever getting off the ground. When the going got tough, the people got going…home.

And the Samaritan sabotage was successful. It lasted “all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia” (v5). Remember, this whole send-the-Jews-back-to-Jerusalem-to-rebuild-the-temple-so-they-can-worship-God thing started with King Cyrus. God stirred his heart to get behind this project (Ez 1:1-4). But after local opposition bullied and bribed the reconstruction to a halt, nobody lifted a hammer or pushed a wheelbarrow for 16 years. It wasn’t until God used the prophet Haggai to remind His people that He was backing their effort that they got back to work (Hag 1:12-15).

So is this some sort of hang-in-there-you-can-do-it pep talk using the Jewish people as the bad example? Let’s face it, we’ve all heard messages from the Old Testament like that before. But we need to keep in mind that the entire Bible is about Jesus. He said so Himself (Jn 5:39, 46). We find encouragement here in the fact that our Savior didn’t waver in the face of satanic sabotage. Christ never wavered when His Father set the cross before Him (Lk 22:42). He saw His mission through to the end until it was absolutely and completely finished (Jn 19:30). We can be very thankful that when the going got tough, Jesus got going. 

When the going got tough, the Tough got going.