Holy Tuesday: The Plot to Kill Jesus & Palm Sunday Festivities and Ordination, and Killing Witches
The kingdom of Jesus would never come through the sword, but salvation; not through war but worship.
On Tuesday of Holy Week, there was a plot that involved money, power, religious leaders, a famous festival, and the devil himself. The religious leaders were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. But they needed an insider— someone who knew the game plan of the inner circle; someone who knew the inside jokes, and someone who knew their bank account number. His name was Judas.
Satan enters Judas and attempts to replicate the wilderness temptations, offering Jesus an easy way out of his course to the cross. If only Jesus is arrested, then he will precipitate a war with the Romans and show himself to be the Messiah. If the religious leaders arrest Jesus, perhaps there will be an inevitable war where Jesus will be forced to forego his mission. God will intervene, defeat the Roman powers, and establish a fleshly kingdom. And perhaps Judas will be a powerful leader in this newly established messianic reign.
But Judas’s dream of an earthly kingdom without the cross and the resurrection would not be fulfilled. In a fascinating turn of events, when Jesus was handed over to the religious leaders (on Holy Wednesday or Maundy Thursday, depending on harmonization), what did the disciples want to do? They wanted to take up the sword and begin a war. They even cut off the ear of one of the servants. Is Judas’s dream being fulfilled before his very eyes?
“My plan has worked. Jesus is going to cast himself from the temple, take the bread, break the fast and show his authority.”
Jesus, however, does not follow the script as Judas imagined. He immediately turns the table, heals the man’s right ear, and says, “None of this. This is not the will of my Father.” Almost immediately, Judas’s vision of what he believed would happen after the arrest of Jesus is shattered.
Jesus’ triumphal entry was not a declaration of physical warfare against the Romans; it was a declaration that his kingdom would be a different kind of kingdom. The kingdom of Jesus would never come through the sword, but salvation, not through war but worship.
Come, let us worship and bow down to the One who overcomes the Devil and rejects all satanic bribes.
Prayer: On this holiest day, O Lord, keep us in truth. Do not allow the offers of this world to persuade us to forsake the crucified Lord. We are unworthy as your servants, yet, we pray that you may count us worthy in your kingdom, for there is no earthly gift greater than the gift of being united to you. Amen.
Notations
I am slowly working my way through Mere Christianity, reading it almost devotionally and methodically to make sure I grasp the little things I missed the last two times I read it years ago. The cohesiveness of the whole process still strikes me. His notion that the mere comparison of ideas leads one to assume a moral order is still a parting strike at the subjectivists of our 21st-century sensibilities.
But much more so is his exquisite logic concerning witches, which I still find as the finest piece of this entire thing:
“Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the 'Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?’ But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did—if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather—surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.”
―C.S. Lewis,Mere Christianity
Lewis understood that if certain realities exist, they must exist within the confines of a particular view of the world. Morality must be applied consistently to its world if justice exists.
Nuntium
Providence experienced a wonderful Palm Sunday!
We overflowed once again, with over 400 in attendance, and we were honored to ordain and install two men into the diaconate and one into eldership. We are grateful that God has added to our numbers and thankful that he has supplied us with godly leaders to help in our endeavors.
Blessed Holy Week,
Uriesou Brito