God’s Great Plan - Tuesday in Holy Week

                When Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, He diffuses a volatile situation in which swords are drawn.  He stops His own disciples from trying to impede what the Jews had come to do.  He also assures the crowd that He will not fight them, but willingly goes with them.  Jesus proclaims to His disciples and His detractors, “Let the Scriptures be fulfilled.”  All of the events that will take place are according to God’s great design for the salvation of humanity.  Reading St. Mark’s Passion once again brings great clarity to God’s purpose in Christ’s birth and life, but also His suffering and death.  Christ, the Paschal Lamb, is the fulfillment of all of the Scriptures.  He is Isaac’s substitute and the Passover Lamb by whose blood the enslaved Israelites are set free.  He is Isaiah’s silent lamb before the shearers.  Harold Senkbeil writes, “The solemn rites we observe during this Lenten season are the church’s way of impressing on all the faithful that our Lord Jesus was indeed bruised for iniquities, that he was wounded for our transgressions, that with his stripes we are healed – that he is the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” 

                But Mark’s Passion account, that the Scriptures would be fulfilled, is also specifically and intimately FOR YOU!  The suffering and death of Christ is most certainly the plan of God for the salvation of His beloved people, prophesied already in the Garden of Eden.  But this is not just a great design, full of layers of Messianic prophecies and rich typological allusions.  At some point, we must never get that Christ’s death and resurrection is FOR YOU!  Christ’s death and resurrection fulfills the Scriptures and takes place according to God’s plan, but it also is the source of forgiveness, life and salvation for you, His beloved child.  In a Palm Sunday sermon, Norman Nagel once preached, “What is this new full, fruitful life?  It is being bound to Christ, serving Him, following Him so where He is, you are, and where you live He lives.  B faith what Jesus did becomes yours.  His dying is counted for your dying.  His rising, your rising.  Life is not what I have done, what I am doing, what I shall do.  Not I, but Christ.  What Christ has done is the glory of Christians.  They show forth what Christ has done for them and now does in them.  The life Christians live is the life of Christ.  The life they live in the flesh is not anymore their own life but Christ’s life in them.  Their life and the life of Christ are so closely bound that their joys are Christ’s joys and their sufferings are Christ’s.” 

                So take time to read the Passion according to St. Mark today (chapters 14-15).  But remember that this great plan was for you.  May you be blessed during this Holy Week as you read and meditate on our Lord’s Passion.

Collect for Tuesday in Holy Week

Almighty and everlasting God, grant us by Your grace so to pass through this holy time of our Lord’s Passion that we may obtain forgiveness of our sins; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.