Over the years, we have given names to some of the days in Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, culminating in Easter–which is technically what comes next, a new week all its own. And a new way of living. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So, I’ve been wondering what Jesus was doing all the other days this week and why they didn’t get special names. Could it be he wasn’t doing anything significant on Tuesday? I really doubt that, so I thought I’d propose some possible names for the Tuesday of Holy Week, sort of like Taco Tuesday, which sounds delicious but doesn’t quite have the eternal impact of the other days’ names.
How about “Jesus tells the religious people to stop being religious and focus on their relationship with God instead” Tuesday? Possible, but not very catchy.
“Jesus prepares his friends for the road ahead” Tuesday?
“Jesus shows up for us even when we don’t know it” Tuesday?
“Jesus never leaves us” Tuesday?
“Jesus, why aren’t you healing my friend” Tuesday?
“God’s ways are beyond my ways” Tuesday?
“Jesus, I need you” Tuesday?
Hmm, I guess I’m not very good at slogans or day naming. But I hope you get the point anyway…
This first day of Holy Week is called Palm Sunday because the people of Jerusalem were so excited about Jesus’s arrival that they waved palm branches to celebrate the arrival of their King. “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they called. People laid their cloaks across the road to honor him. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:8-9 (NIV))
What a celebration! The whole city is partying!
How ironically tragic that it took only five days for the tone to change so drastically.
But, of course, it is no less ironically tragic for me that sometimes after even fewer days–sadly, sometimes only hours–after a mountaintop experience, a sacred encounter with my loving God, I can fall away for seemingly the dumbest of reasons.
And that’s why this week had to go the way it went.
That may not have been why the people of Jerusalem were celebrating, but it is what motivates my gratitude. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
And not just that it’s from Paul, but more specifically, this additional bit of great news also comes from the eighth chapter of his letter to the Romans (like the last 2 episodes):
Sometimes, maybe oftentimes, life is hard. It can seem like “the world” is against us, even though most of the world doesn’t even know us. Maybe it’s a friend or group of friends. Or lack of a friend. Maybe it’s that work or school is overwhelming. It could be that physical or mental health issues have you down. Financial troubles. Marriage or family problems.
I could go on and on, and so could you, most likely. But who wants to ponder such things?
That’s why these words from Paul can be so encouraging. Which of these challenges I listed, or those you added to the list, are so big that God cannot handle them?
We might be tempted, especially when feeling sorry for ourselves, to think God doesn’t care about us or our problems, or that He doesn’t understand them. But that’s simply not true. Maybe one of the reasons Jesus came down from his throne in heaven for a time to live on this planet with us was to show us that God cares about our human problems and will help us get through them. Jesus either experienced all of these issues himself, or encountered people who were dealing with them.
A friend or group of friends turning against you? At the worst time in his life, most of Jesus’s friends deserted him because they were afraid. Peter, one of his closest friends, claimed he didn’t even know Jesus. Three times. Another of his friends betrayed him for a few coins–a betrayal that led to his execution. Don’t think for a moment that God doesn’t understand the pain of broken friendships. And where did Jesus turn in those troubling moments? To God.
Jesus faced overwhelming work, also. He knew he had only three years to undo millennia of human brokenness, which had been chipping away at God’s intentions for His relationship with humanity. We had traded the grace and peace of walking in the garden with God for hundreds of man-made rules that led people to believe they could earn a place in heaven if they just checked off all the right boxes. Jesus was so tired from his work that he slept through a storm at sea, one that was so bad that even the experienced fishermen with him thought they were going to die. Where did Jesus find the strength and endurance to keep going in spite of his exhaustion? He spent a lot of time in prayer.
Anyway, I hope you get the point: God cares about you and your problems. He is on your side and will help you face them. And not just face them–OVERCOME them!
Just a few verses later, Paul adds these encouraging words:
How great is that? Not only will God help us not to be defeated by our problems, He will help us conquer them!
And here’s the really difficult, challenging thing you have to do to invoke His help. You have to utter these words: Help me, Jesus.
That’s it. Do that, and over time, God will help you conquer every problem life throws at you! I can’t even begin to understand why everyone is not availing themselves of this awesome, inexhaustible power!
So, what are you facing right now that you think you can’t conquer with God’s help?
Just kidding (much to my wife’s chagrin!). I can’t let this additional good news from Paul go without some commentary. So here’s how the Apostle Paul explained it to the Christ-followers in Rome:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Like I did last week, let me ask rhetorically: what do you think he meant by “nor anything else in all creation”? I think he means to say that nothing can keep God from loving us.
But what about my bad behavior? My anger? My swearing?
No.
But what about my addictions? Greed? Pride? All the other stupid things I’ve done and said?
Also no. Not even those things can come between us and God’s love for us.
But Paul didn’t know me, or else he wouldn’t have said this. God doesn’t know me and the things I’ve done.
Oh, but He does.
There’s a reason God inspired Paul to write these words. Believing he was serving God, Paul had dedicated himself to persecuting and executing Followers of Christ. After his conversion on the road to Damascus, then, he must have had many moments of self-doubt and God-doubt. He must have wondered repeatedly, How could God really love me after all that I’ve done?
It’s a fair question.
After wrestling with it over the years, God must have led Paul to this answer: There is nothing you have done or ever will do that could separate you from my love.
I can imagine Paul getting down onto his knees and weeping when he came to this realization.
God says the same thing to you and me. We should all join Paul in gratitude for this great news, for this undeserved grace.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Paul the Apostle, in Romans 8:1-2
Pepperdine University, Malibu Campus
What do you suppose Paul meant by no condemnation? Do you think he meant a little condemnation? No, I think he meant NO condemnation!
Isn’t that great news? I think it is!
You could ask Mary Magdalene. Jesus had cast seven demons out of her previously (see Mark 16:9), so where she had felt nothing but condemnation until he had come along, from him she received grace. Forgiveness. Relief from her tormented life.
She was so thankful that she had been present at Jesus’s crucifixion. When most of the disciples had abandoned him in fear, she stayed with her Lord.
She was one of the first ones to arrive at the empty tomb on that first Easter Sunday. And also, according to the account in Mark 16:9, she was the first one Jesus appeared to after he had risen from the dead. Then she was the first one to report to the disciples that Jesus was no longer dead (see John 20:18). This means she was the original pastor, the first one to spread the Good News!
This was how she showed her gratitude to Jesus for freeing her from her condemnation.
How about you–how do you show Jesus how thankful you are for releasing you from your condemnation?
New Life Church, Colorado Springs, CO. Copyright (c) 2022 by David K. Carpenter Photography. All rights reserved
Well, this has been quite a journey through Christian apologetics, which is not anything like saying, “Gee, I’m sorry I’m a Christian.” Instead, it’s better summarized as being able to explain our faith to someone who is trying to understand it with honest intellectual curiosity or defend it in a logical and caring way against someone who is attacking or ridiculing it. I believe I’ve covered all the topics God has put into my mind to address, so I thought I’d wrap up with an overview, followed by some possible next steps.
Where We’ve Been
We spent several episodes looking at doubt. Many of us tend to think of doubt as the enemy of faith, so we back away from it like a cliff we might accidentally fall off of, crashing onto the rocks of atheism far below. But in looking at this, we found that actually, the opposite is true. God gave us our very capable brain (the world’s first supercomputer) so that we would examine our beliefs logically and scientifically. Those that don’t stand up to such scrutiny should be set aside; those that do should become deeply held–but not grasped onto so tightly that we do not allow them to be challenged and investigated further, as and when new information is available.
Interestingly, God gave us each our own brain so we could each analyze important truths on our own, in our own way. Not surprisingly, Satan has used tools like social media to promote the groupthink mania rampant today, discouraging people from thinking for themselves. Instead of thinking deeply about essential matters, it’s much more hip and socially acceptable to take the word of celebrities, star athletes, TV anchor people, or (worst of all) politicians.
Anyway, God is not afraid of your doubt or questions. He would rather you think deeply about your faith, for an unexamined faith is a weak faith. The first storm that comes up will knock it off its moorings and send it adrift in a sea of hopelessness. Listen to Jesus’s explanation of the Parable of the Sowers he had told a few moments earlier:
When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Jesus, in Matthew 13:19-23 (NIV)
It sure sounds to me like he wanted to make sure we understand our faith as much as we can.
Also, even if you’re not close enough to the faith to even consider it doubt, but rather think it’s all a bunch of made-up garbage on par with the mythology of so many other ancient civilizations, that’s OK, too. If you are convinced that’s true, then you should be willing to do some research to be able to explain why you think that. To do an honest and thorough investigation, you would naturally need to understand the claims of Christianity so you can logically refute them.
Along these lines, we moved from doubt into exploring the facts around Christianity. We answered questions like “How can you believe God exists?” and “How can you believe that miracles are real?” We also looked at biblical absolute morality as the true source of our sense of right and wrong, contrasting it with the moral relativism that is unraveling the fabric of modern culture.
From there, we moved into facts and data. We talked about the historicity and factual reliability of the Bible, pointing out that it has more substantial evidence supporting its validity than any other ancient historical document. We examined Christian beliefs from the perspective of many different modern sciences. If you will truly follow the scientific method to investigate the Bible’s claims and the counter-claims made by unbelievers, you will be left with no other logical explanation for our vast physical universe or the spectacular intricacies of the human body than that there is an intelligent force behind it all–otherwise known as God.
We looked more closely at who God is. This included discussions about who Jesus is, which naturally led to a discussion of the Trinity, a challenging and difficult topic, but one that begins to make a little more sense the more you read through the New Testament of the Bible and get to know Jesus and his claims about who he was and is. Through all of this, we came to see that sin is a separation from God caused by things we do, say, or even think. In this way, any of us who are honest with ourselves will realize that we have sinned. This means that we deserve eternal separation from God, our Creator–this is a description of hell. But thankfully, that’s not the end of the story. As the Apostle Paul poignantly points out:
What this means is that Jesus steps in and takes the punishment each of us deserves, enabling us to be reconciled to God. God offers us this gift of grace freely. We have only to receive it in order to spend eternity in heaven. Author Os Guinness has said it another way:
Christianity is the only religion whose God bears the scars of evil.
In the last group of episodes, we dealt with a number of other challenging questions that are often raised by unbelievers as reasons why they don’t believe in God or Jesus. This includes things like, “How can you believe Jesus really rose from the dead?” and “How can you believe in a sovereign God that allows so much pain and suffering in the world?” We dealt with these and other questions in (hopefully) logical and factual ways.
The bottom line here is that it’s OK to have questions and doubts. What’s not OK is to leave your questions and doubts unexamined. How you answer the ultimate questions about who you say God and Jesus are will determine where you spend eternity–with God in heaven or apart from Him in hell–which is why it’s so important for you to investigate these questions for yourself.
Where Do I Go from Here?
If you have no idea how to examine the validity of the Christian claims or why it’s so important, I will include several resources here that have been helpful to me over the years.
The Bible – any church I’ve ever been to has been willing to give you a Bible for free. Also, my personal favorite way to read the Bible is YouVersion, which is also free. One reason I like it so much is that it has apps for all of your mobile devices, so I always have my Bible at hand. Also, it has countless translations in many different languages, so there should be version out there for almost anyone in the world. Having said all this, reading the can be a daunting task. I don’t recommend reading it from cover to cover your first time through. I’d suggest starting in the book of John, which emphasizes the love of God as demonstrated in Jesus Christ.
If you are more inclined to listen to things rather than read them, an alternative is the Daily Audio Bible. It’s a freed podcast by Brian Hardin. Each day, he reads some of the Old Testament, something from the New Testament, a passage from Psalms, and another from Proverbs. He reads just enough so that by the end of a year, he has read through the entire Bible. One great thing about this is that Brian talks for a little while after the reading about what he read that day. His explanations can really help you as you wrestle with some of the more challenging passages of Scripture. He is in his 15th year of doing this, and I think I’ve been on the journey with him for 7 of those years. Every year I learn something new and fresh about how great our God is.
Find a good church that is welcoming and grace-filled, and that teaches the Bible. In my opinion, the people there should not make you feel judged–judging us is God’s job alone, but even then, you should not fear an angry God–He loves us and wants us to be with Him so much that He sent his son to take our punishment for us. If you aren’t comfortable going to a church in person, you could start by looking for a suitable church online. My church (New Life Church) allows you to watch the services online while they happen. While I don’t think watching church online is as soul-quenching as being there in person, it’s better than not participating at all. One important point about church, though, is that God does not want you to attend just to check a box. We cannot earn our way into heaven. He wants us to participate in church since it can help us grow closer to Him and also to other believers. He wants us to be there for each other, to help each other along in our journeys.
In addition to the Bible, there are several other great books that cover these and other topics much more thoroughly than I have been able to in blog posts (which are supposed to be brief!). I’ve mentioned most of these at various times in this series, but it’s worth listing them here for reference:
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis – excellent, very thought-provoking book written with Lewis’s typical engaging but very deep style. This book is especially meaningful since Lewis himself started out as an atheist, but when he investigated the claims of his Christian friends, he found that he did not have enough faith to remain an atheist since the evidence for Christianity was so overwhelming.
Letters from a Skeptic, by Dr. Gregory Boyd and Edward K. Boyd – this one is really good for anyone just starting to looking into Christianity but who generally thinks it’s a load of garbage. Greg Boyd is a theologian and pastor at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN. His father, Edward, had fallen away from the faith and no longer had any need for God. The younger Boyd initiated a letter exchange with his dad to probe and try to address his objections to the faith.
Life with a Capital L, by Matt Heard. Heard had been the senior pastor at Woodmen Valley Chapel when I had attended there a number of years ago. In addition to this book, he also provided significant information and inspiration for this series in a sermon series in 2012 called “Think Again – Truth, Doubt, and Questions That Matter.”
So, that’s about it. If you’re not yet a Follower of Christ, my prayer for you is that you will investigate the facts surrounding Christianity with an open mind, willing to follow wherever it leads. If you already have a relationship with Christ, I pray that you will continue to deepen your understanding of your faith so you are prepared to explain it to anyone who God puts in your path who is looking to understand it better.
Master's Canvas - Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter 