OCTOBER 9 MATTHEW 26-28

October 9, 2014

Matthew 26-28

Passion.  We use the word for romance: “They had a passionate love affair.” We use it for any pursuit that consumes our time and interest: “He has a passion for model trains or baseball.” But one of the most accurate uses of the word, “passion,” occurs when we connect it to the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, for passion comes from a Latin root that means “to suffer.”

Matthew 26 and 27 describe the passion of Christ, beginning with the Jewish’ leaders plot against him, contracting Judas for betrayal. Jesus announces this at the Passover meal, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me” (26:23). During supper, he prefigures his broken body and shed blood through bread and wine, and predicts the denial of Peter and the desertion of the others.

The agonizing prayer in the garden is followed, in rapid succession, by his arrest, his mock trials and Peter’s actual denial. Jesus is taken to Pilate, flogged and mocked by Pilate’s soldiers, rejected by the crowd and led out to be crucified. Of the “Seven Last Words” of Jesus from the cross, Matthew only reports one: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

When Jesus breathes his last, Matthew reports a series of amazing events: the temple curtain between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, which contained the Ark of God’s Presence, was torn from top to bottom. An earthquake broke open tombs, and many of the dead came to life. A centurion believes.

After his passion, Jesus is buried and his tomb is guarded. Some of the women, who had seen where he was laid, wait through the Sabbath, and go to the tomb on Sunday, but Jesus is not there. An angel announces his resurrection, and then Jesus himself appears. He instructs the women to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee. Once there, on a certain mountain, he commissions them AND US to go and make disciples of all peoples! Lord, give us the grace to obey!

Tomorrow, we begin the gospel of Mark.

Your fellow pilgrim through the New Testament,

Pastor Gary