Introduction
Jesus death and
resurrection is the climax of biblical revelation. Studying it is
like examining a fine gem and discovering its multi-faceted depth and
beauty. Look at it through Old Testament prophecy, and you will be
struck by God’s sovereignty. Look at it through Jesus’
words on the cross, and you will be struck by God’s holiness
and love. Look at it through the events accompanying it, and you
will be struck by its power.
I want to conclude
this series by looking Jesus’ death and resurrection through
the eyes of Jesus’ disciples. What did they expect to happen
on that first Good Friday? How did they interpret Jesus crucifixion?
How did Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday change their
interpretation of his death? What lessons can we learn from this?
The disciples’
perspective
If you read the four gospels’ coverage of
this period of Jesus’ ministry, you will discover a very clear
progression in the disciples’ perspective.
First, Jesus was
very clear with them about what would happen. Over and over again,
he told them that it was God’s plan for him as the Messiah to
be rejected by the religious leaders, be betrayed by one of his
followers, suffer unjustly, be crucified--and then to be raised from
the dead three days later (read Lk. 9:22,44).
But his disciples
steadfastly refused to accept this. In fact, Luke says they were
unable to accept it (read Lk. 9:45). This was partly because
they understood the Old Testament messianic prophecies to speak only
of a victorious King, and partly because of they wanted him to be
King so they could have comfort, fame and power. This was their
“grid”--and it filtered out Jesus’ repeated
prediction.
Therefore, when
Jesus was arrested, condemned and then crucified, they were
shattered. Like the onlookers at Calvary, they expected God to
dramatically deliver his Messiah from this fate--but God did not
deliver him. Because God was absent and inactive during Jesus’
crucifixion, they concluded that Jesus was not the Messiah as they
had hoped (read Lk. 24:19-21). This conclusion ran so deep that
even when the women reported that his tomb was empty and that angels
had told them he was risen, they regarded this as nonsense (read
Lk. 24:11).
But when the risen
Jesus appeared to them and convinced them he had conquered death,
they were stunned and astonished. The events of Good Friday looked
totally different from the vantage point of Easter Sunday. They had
concluded that since God let Jesus be crucified, he must not be the
Messiah. But the resurrection proved beyond all doubt that Jesus was
the Messiah (read Luke 24:26). They had concluded that God’s
plan had been thwarted by Jesus’ crucifixion. But the
resurrection proved just the opposite--that God’s plan had been
fulfilled by Jesus’ death (read Lk. 24:46,47 excerpt).
It is difficult for us to be surprised and stunned
about Jesus’ death and resurrection like the disciples, because
Americans (even most unchurched Americans) look at it through the
grid of New Testament teaching. “Of course Jesus had to die
for our sins. Of course Jesus had to be raised from the dead after
he paid for our sins. Of course Good Friday was followed by Easter
Sunday. Of course this was God’s plan all along.”
The death and resurrection of Jesus is the way God
saves us. If you come to God through Jesus’ death for your
sins, he will forgive your sins, reconcile to himself, and give you
eternal life. But Jesus’ death and resurrection is more than
this. It is also a pattern of the way God works in our lives
after we believe in Jesus. And because of this, there are some
important ways that we can identify with the disciples, and there are
some important lessons we can learn from their experience. Let’s
look at a couple of these lessons . . .
God is often most present
& active when he seems most absent & inactive.
The disciples’
expectations about Jesus formed their experience during his death.
Their experience told them that God was absent and inactive during
Jesus’ crucifixion--but his resurrection proved that their
experience was wrong. God had been present and active in a hidden
and mysterious, but powerful way to forgive sin, defeat Satan,
conquer death, etc.--just like Jesus had said. Their mistake was
trusting their experience instead of Jesus’ word.
Can you relate to
this? All of us to some degree, and some of us to a great degree,
live our spiritual lives like the disciples. We expect that
following Jesus will yield certain positive results. But then things
don’t turn out like we expected. Our experience tells us that
God has forsaken us, that our faith in Jesus was useless after all.
Will you trust your experience, or will you acknowledge that your
experience is not entirely reliable--and instead trust God’s
Word?
I’m not
saying there is no value in our experience. Positive spiritual
experience (SENSING GOD’S LOVE & GUIDANCE; EXPERIENCING
QUICK ANSWERS TO PRAYER; HAVING GOOD CIRCUMSTANCES & GOD’S
JOY, PEACE & HOPE) is good and healthy. This is the fruit of
God’s Spirit, and if it is chronically absent from your life,
something is wrong.
But there will
also be periods of spiritual darkness (NO SENSE OF GOD’S LOVE;
IN THE DARK ABOUT HIS WILL; NO APPARENT ANSWERS TO PRAYER; HAVING
HORRIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES & WRESTLING WITH CONFUSION, ANXIETY &
DESPAIR). During these times, you will be tempted to trust your
experience and conclude that God is absent and inactive--or even that
your faith in Christ is useless. Especially since our culture tells
us that experience is a reliable guide to reality. Especially if
this is your first time for this. Especially if your Christian
teachers and friends can’t relate or say your faith is
deficient.
It is during these
times that you need to trust what God says rather than your
experience, because God’s Word is a more reliable guide to
reality (2 Cor. 4:18; 5:7). You need to recall the Cross
and the Resurrection. You need to hold on to passages like Job and
Paul’s imprisonment. You need to humbly acknowledge that you
don’t see the whole picture--only God does, and God can be
trusted more than your experience.
If you do this,
you will discover what the disciples discovered-- that Good Friday
will be followed by Easter Sunday. You will discover that your
experience was wrong, that God was indeed present and active when he
seemed absent and inactive. In fact, you will discover that he was
doing some of the most powerful work in you during these very times.
The most formative periods of my spiritual development have taken
place during the darkest times of my life. This will help you to
trust God’s Word (rather than your experience) the next time
you go through a period of spiritual darkness.
There is a second, closely-related but different
lesson we can learn from the disciples concerning the events of Good
Friday and Easter Sunday . . .
A spiritually fruitful
life requires “death” followed by “resurrection.”
The
disciples expected and wanted Jesus to establish God’s
glorious kingdom without any death or suffering. But they learned
that Jesus had to suffer and die first--and only after this be
raised and glorified. Only through Jesus’ death could
humanity be forgiven and made eligible for God’s kingdom.
Jesus told them
this in a different way just before he was arrested. Read Jn. 12:24.
Jesus was the life of God incarnate, and he came so that we might be
indwelt by God’s spiritual life. But before his life could
bear fruit in others, he first had to die. Had they accepted what
Jesus said about this, they would have followed him through his
Passion instead of being stumbled by it.
We may be amazed
that disciples were so thick-headed about this--but we make the same
mistake when it comes to spiritual fruitfulness in our own lives!
But Jesus said this same lesson applies to us--read Jn. 12:26.
Jesus wants his spiritual life in us to bear fruit by germinating and
growing in others. But for this to happen, we must take the same
path that Jesus took--through “death” to “resurrection.”
If you want a spiritually fruitful life, it will require a series of
“deaths” followed by “resurrections.”
Jesus taught this
same lesson when he likened us to vines whose purpose is to bear
fruit for his Father. Read Jn. 15:2b. Just as a vine must be
pruned to bear more fruit, so God must prune our lives to make us
more fruitful for him.
Paul taught this
same lesson when he described his Christian life as a series of
replays of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Read 2 Cor. 4:8-12
and principlize the sufferings (NAGGING NEGATIVE CIRCUMSTANCES;
SPIRITUAL CONFUSION; MISTREATMENT BY OTHERS; SUDDEN & BIG
CRISES). In a mysterious way, God works through these sufferings to
deepen our faith in him, transform our character, mortify our
selfishness--so that his power and truth and love can pour into us
and through us in greater measure to others.
I have never known a deeply effective Christian worker who has not
gone through deep sufferings!
This is a
difficult lesson to learn, especially since our culture tells us that
life is about getting what we want, that we should never have to
suffer, that nothing is worth losing comfort for, etc. And
tragically, much of the American church teaches the same thing
(HEALTH & WEALTH; OMISSION OF THIS EMPHASIS & AFFIRMATION OF
PERSONAL PEACE & AFFLUENCE). If you ignore this lesson, you will
opt for comfort resulting in a shallow and barren spiritual life.
But if you embrace
this lesson, and expect your Christian life to involve an ongoing
series of “deaths” followed by “resurrections,”
you will eventually reap the benefit of a life of greater
fruitfulness and fulfillment than you could ever imagine! Which kind
of spiritual life do you want?
Footnotes
Copyright 2005 Gary DeLashmutt