Gospel Week!

My church has started doing this thing twice a year called the Prayer Room. A common room is converted into a quiet place for prayer, open almost 24 hours a day for a week. There are some guides in the room to help the church pray uniformedly. The first time the room was set up the pastors led the congregation through general topics. The second time we prayed through selected Psalms. This time we're praying through the events of Passion Week.

I think I drove about 80 mph to get there. This was going to be the best prayer room yet. I couldn't wait to get there. Why was I so excited? Well, Passion Week is nothing less than the narrative of the Gospel.

For those who don't know what Passion Week is, it's the week before Easter, encapsulating Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter. Palm Sunday is the day Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and the crowds hailed him as their coming king, waving palm branches and crying out his praise. Good Friday is the day Christ was crucified (by that same crowd). And Easter is the day he rose from the dead.

When we use the word "passion" these days we think of romance. But originally the word meant an 'extreme suffering'. His last week was indeed a week of suffering - but it ended in the most exciting, peace-giving news in all of history.

Picture this: you've been following Jesus ministry for years, and suddenly he starts talking about how he's going to Jerusalem to be betrayed, subjected to a corrupt trial, tortured and executed - but that he'd then rise from the dead. You'd probably brush it off. "No way, Jesus, not you." But then it really happens. You observe the whole thing publically. You watch Jesus being beaten, flogged, mocked and spit on, forced to carry his own cross out of the city and up a hill, be nailed to it and left to hang there for hours, and finally die. And when he does, the sky turns black and the earth shakes. Eventually Jesus is burried in a cave tomb, and because those who killed him are so afraid his disciples will come rob the body and spread a story that he'd risen from the dead, they set a huge boulder in front of the entrace, seal it with wax, and post armed guards before it. Imagine then that days pass, and you're a woman going to the tomb to treat his body with purfumes, and when you arrived, you're greeted with an empty tomb, and two white clad figures who says this:

"Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise." --Luke 24:5b-7

Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. I cried as I read these words in the prayer room. He has risen. His ressurection proved something: it proved that his death had been sufficient to pay the penalty for my sin, and that I had been ransomed.

Passion Week? Yes, it was a week when Christ suffered. But the suffering wasn't the main point of the week. It was neccesary, and we shouldn't forget it, but it shouldn't be the thing that arrests our attention. The thing that should arrest our attention should be the reason for that suffering - God was reconciling a fallen world to himself in Christ's death. Let's not dare to forget that. This is Gospel Week, folks. This story doesn't leave you feeling extremely blah after a long session of carnal brutality - it ends with a means by which sinners can approach a holy God. This week isn't about Easter dresses and an obligatory church service - it's about The Gospel. Remember what Christ had to endure as this week passes, but unlike everyone standing at the foot of the cross that day, we know how the story ends. Keep that in mind this week. Use this week to let God amaze you at his love for you. Ask him to grow you in appreciation of the ends he went to to secure your place in his presence. This was no small thing. Grab hold of this week and don't let go until you're amazed by grace.