Passion Week – The Week in History that Changed the World (Day 3)

Day 3: A Conspiracy Against Jesus
Read: Mt. 26:14-16; Mk. 14:10-11; Lk. 22:3-6.

Have we abandoned Jesus when He would suffer the most for us? To abandon a friendship is to thrust a dagger into the ribs and vanish. Judas was from the tribe of Judah, the same tribe of Jesus. Also, Judas was the treasurer of the group, the most trusted one, yet he betrayed the Savior. Also, Peter proclaimed, “Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away” (Matt 26:33). Yet, he denied the Lord three times. Max Lucado said, “Peter was loyal from a distance. He went close enough to see, but not close enough to be seen. The problem was, Peter was seen.” Luke records this very moment, “Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance” (Luke 22:54).

Often, we follow Jesus from a distance thinking He can’t see the things we want to hide. However, there is no healing in hiding. John Ortberg said, “Wearing masks can become a way of life. Pretending to be happy when you carry a secret ache. Pretending to be spiritually healthy when there is a great distance between you and God.

Pretending to have perfect relationships with others when the truth is your relationship has a hollow chamber where its heart should be.” When we follow Jesus from a distance, there is an unavoidable sense of guilt, which motivates us to hide, pretending and deceiving. When we hide, we slowly become separated from God and have nothing to contribute to the community. Lastly, we blame others, which is trying to hide one’s own guilt by pretending to be more innocent than one really is. Do you want to be whole again? Do you want your relationship with Jesus to be true and real? Confess your sin to God and to others.

After a sermon on condemnation of sinners, a flippant youth asked a preacher, “You say that unsaved people carry a weight of sin. I feel nothing. How heavy is sin? Is it ten lbs? Eighty lbs.? The preacher replied by asking the youth, “If I laid a four hundred pound weight on a dead corpse, would it feel the load?” The young man replied, “It would feel nothing, man, it’s dead.” The preacher concluded, “That spirit in you, too, is indeed dead which feels no load of sin or is indifferent to its burden and unaware about its presence.” The youth was silenced into a blank and hopeless stare. The preacher was implying that if the youth also felt no remorse or guilt from his sins, he was also a dead spirit, and nothing more than a dead corpse who cannot feel the weight of sin upon him.

James said, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” There is no healing in hiding. The secret of finding healing for the soul is revealed by James: Confession + Prayer = Healing. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “If a Christian is in the fellowship of confession with a brother, he will never be alone again, anywhere.” To be in the fellowship of confession, it takes the death of pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, judgmental thoughts, superior attitude, and impatient words. Larry Crabb said, “The route to life is death. We die in order to live.” Thus, confessing sins to each other means to die together in order to live together.

P. Tae