Thursday, April 21, 2011

Passion Week Timeline

I really enjoy going through the timeline of what happened to Jesus this week in history. It makes everything so real - pondering what was happening every hour.

Pretty amazing to think that from the time Jesus celebrated Passover/Last Supper with the disciples (Thursday evening) until the time he was crucified at 9 am the following morning there wasn't a break.

I'm hit with what must have been the utter exhaustion of Jesus - going non-stop from about 6 PM through 3 PM the next day (21 hours in all) - having his "last night" with his friends, being betrayed, sweating drops of blood in agonizing prayer in the Garden, being arrested and dragged off, carted around between different religious authorities, denied by his friends, mocked, beaten, tortured, sentenced, crucified, hanging on the cross for 6 hours, darkness covering the earth, "it is finished," earthquakes, Temple veil torn in two, graves splitting open and dead people rising...

One resource that I use in my prayer times is an old copy of "Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah" by Alfred Edersheim which puts all the different Gospel accounts together (and sheds extra light on the history).

There are plenty of other resources out there. Here is a link to a great article that gives the timeline and more
http://biblewise.com/archives/2009/april/overview/passion_week_2009.pdf

Just to think of what Jesus endured (all on purpose), willingly yielded, knowing that His sacrifice would bring the greatest victory of all time!

He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. Colossians 2:14-15 NLT

I am so thankful, wanting to join Paul in his prayer (though I wrestle a bit on the "suffer with him" part):

I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! Philippians 3:10

Jesus is amazing.

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