What Happened that Week?

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About four years ago, I guess, so yeah, 2020, when we were all locked down and I was having to sit and talk to rectangles a lot in empty rooms, I did something in the week leading up to Easter where each evening I would go live with streaming and do a devotional talking about the life of Jesus on that day in the week leading up to the resurrection. And the kids helped me do that. We enjoyed doing it, but I got tired of streaming so much stuff, and I have really not had the desire to do that since until this year.

And I thought, we ought to do that again. We talked about it. We even started planning, and time-wise, it just did not work out.

Tonight, we’re going to try to squeeze that whole week into tonight and see how far we get and go over what happened in the life of Jesus. Those who are here in the room have handouts. Those of you who are at home, I can post those somewhere later for you if you’d like to look at them.

What we’re going to look at tonight is the order of how this happened. And follow kind of the movements of Jesus and his disciples through that week. because I think studying it that way helps us understand the big picture of the story.

I do have to qualify this by saying this is how I think it happened. There are some things that I know. I know Jesus was crucified.

I know Jesus was buried. I know that Jesus rose again and the tomb was empty. And I know lots of people saw him alive again.

I know those things for sure. As far as the order, some of these things I’ve seen where other people have put them in a little bit different order. But this is my best guess of how these things fit together.

So if you see something that, no, I think this fits better here, you may very well be right. I culled this from the research for my dissertation. And I’ll tell you, every time I go back to this, I find some little detail that this fits better here.

So it’s kind of a work in progress. And as far as what day, I didn’t come up with this. I’ve read several different people that say different things.

And the research that I think was best is a professor at Midwestern named Andreas Kostenberger, who said he can, with the clues in the Bible and the astronomical movements with Passover and the moon and all, it’s above my head. But with all of that, he said we can pinpoint the date of the crucifixion to April 3rd in the year AD 33. Now, ultimately, for us, it doesn’t matter exactly what day.

If it’s that, if it’s March 29th of AD 30 or whatever, that ultimately doesn’t matter. The only reason to think about it is that it makes it more real, makes it seem as real as it is. Because for a lot of people, this is just a legend, a myth story.

This happened. And so if we can place it in history, all the better. So I want to start with the triumphal entry on Sunday, Sunday before the crucifixion.

Probably happened early in the morning. You’re familiar with the story. Jesus goes into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.

What was unusual about that, about riding in on the back of a donkey? Kings would be on a camel. Yeah, kings would be on a camel, maybe a strong horse, something like that.

He was riding on a donkey, and at that he was riding on a young donkey that had never been ridden. Why did he do that? Other than humility, as Brother Mike pointed out.

Prophecy. Yes, the book of Zechariah. Is it Zechariah?

I don’t have that in front of me. I should be familiar with it enough now, but I second guess myself when I get up here. I believe it’s Zechariah.

has a prophecy about the king of Israel entering into the city on the back of a donkey. So he comes into the city. How do the people react?

Joyfully. They reacted the way we thought the children were going to react on Sunday morning. Shouting Hosanna, waving their palm branches.

They were not nervous like the kids were. No, they shouted Hosanna. Why would they shout Hosanna?

Do you know what that means? Kind of. And some of the things that they shouted at him were glory to God, but it’s a cry for salvation.

And in their case, they were thinking somebody that was going to restore the kingdom of Israel and kick the Romans out. They waved palm branches and they threw clothes in the streets. Why would they do that?

That was a welcome for what kind of person? Royalty. And there’s some examples in, I believe it’s with King Jehu in the Old Testament.

There’s examples of people throwing clothes in the streets before the king. Then we come to this moment in Luke chapter 19. Matthew talks about it as well, but Luke chapter 19, I want to look at real quick, if you want to turn there with me, and we’re going to hit some highlights of this as we go through.

Luke 19, starting in verse 41, it says, when he approached Jerusalem. So there’s this big procession going on. The people are chanting for him and shouting for him.

It says, when he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, if you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace, but now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you and surround you and hem you in on every side. and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave you one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.

Now, he’s talking about something that would happen in the year 8070 when the Romans would come and after another revolt, they would just devastate Jerusalem. But he says they didn’t know the, they didn’t understand the coming of their peace. They did not recognize the time of their visitation.

What’s he talking about? they didn’t realize he wasn’t the Messiah yeah they’re not understanding what it means that he came to be the Messiah because Jerusalem specifically was looking for a different kind of Messiah now there’s a question that I struggled with and had to try to wrestle with an answer for and I wonder if you’ve ever thought about this that the crowd on this day they’re shouting and screaming and praising Jesus on Sunday and on Friday what are they doing? Crucify him.

They’re angry about it. What happened? He didn’t do what they wanted.

That’s part of it. The Jews spread the word. He was a false teacher, a false prophet.

Yes, you definitely had. . .

Not the Son of God. He claimed to be. That’s not a false.

. . Yeah.

You definitely had people that were part of the leaders of Jerusalem spreading word to the people that, hey, this is a bad guy. He’s not what he claims to be. One of the gospel accounts talks about the people that followed him from Galilee and those who had witnessed him raising Lazarus from the dead at Bethany just a few days before this.

They came with him and the people of Jerusalem came out and said, What is all this hullabaloo? That’s my paraphrase. What’s this going on?

There were people that were in town for the Passover from Galilee. If they were in Galilee, they had heard his teaching, they’d seen his miracles. The people in Galilee were much friendlier to Jesus than the people in Jerusalem.

So I think what we have here is that there’s a procession coming into the city of people that maybe not necessarily were believers, but were a lot friendlier to Jesus. And the people that were there in Jerusalem were going, who is this guy? And they’re listening to their leaders saying, we don’t like him.

And it just got worse as the week went on. And it seems like the crowds in Jerusalem, the local crowds, seem to be the majority on Friday. So Jesus comes into Jerusalem.

Where does he go? He goes to the temple. John is the only one that records much about this, because I think John wrote later on and kind of filled in some of the gaps that the other three left.

And there’s this moment where Jesus preaches in the temple. The Gentiles that have come to participate in the Passover are wanting a meeting with Jesus. He’s teaching the people about the coming of the Son of Man.

And John says they don’t believe him. The people don’t believe him. John even says the voice of God.

Jesus prays to the Father and says, Father, glorify your Son as I’ve glorified you. And the voice of the Father is heard saying, I already have glorified it and will glorify it. And the people just don’t even acknowledge this.

They say, oh, we heard thunder or we heard angels. They didn’t want to believe that it was the voice of God. And so John says the people didn’t believe him.

John also makes an interesting point that the leaders believed him, but they still rejected him. And that is amazing to me that somebody can understand just exactly who Jesus is and what God has sent him for and still reject him. But that’s what the religious leaders did.

Well, they believed him, but they didn’t want him to take power because it would take power away from them. Yeah. They knew he was the Messiah, but they didn’t want him to be because that cut into their power.

You’re absolutely right. So the crowds there in Jerusalem refuse to believe him. And Jesus leaves and he continues to teach his followers as they go.

There’s again, another place in John where it continues this teaching as they’re headed back out to Bethany. Now there’s something you’ll see over and over in the handout is this little phrase from, or this little passage from Luke 21 verses 37 and 38. And it says, now during the day he was teaching in the temple, but at evening he would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet.

And all the people would get up early in the morning to come to him in the temple and listen to him. And he’s explaining what Jesus’ habit was each night as this week continued until the night that he spends all night in Gethsemane, that he would spend the day in Jerusalem. He’d go out to the Mount of Olives to Bethany and spend the night there, and then in the morning he would come back.

And so you’ll see that repeated, because that’s just a reminder that that’s what happened at this time. So he went home. He went home to Bethany, at least to his, you know, kind of like when you’re on vacation, you’re going back to the hotel, you say, we’re going to go home.

I don’t know if anybody else does that, but I have. So he’s going back out to where he’s staying for the night, at least. And then the next morning, he comes back into Jerusalem. One thing that I’ve discovered that comes into play here is that there routes from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem.

And because it’s Jerusalem’s up on a high point, Mount of Olives is a high point, there’s a valley in the middle. There’s different ways. And one is easier to go one way because of the steepness of it.

And one is easier to go another way because of the steepness of it. So you might not come and go from Jerusalem by the same route. And so they’re headed back into Jerusalem and Jesus sees a fig tree.

The Bible says it’s not the season for figs, But Jesus sees leaves and goes over there to see if there are any figs there or not. And what does he do? He curses it.

Now, that doesn’t mean that he. . .

What Colonel Potter on MASH calls the four-letter serenade, when he says he cursed the fig tree, he placed an actual curse on it. May no one ever eat figs from you again. Why was he upset with the fig tree when it wasn’t even fig season?

Why would he be upset that there weren’t figs? The pig tree is kind of a symbol of Israel. It is a symbol of Israel.

That’s exactly right. The fruitlessness of Israel. The fruitlessness of Israel.

And skeptics will look at this and say, well, isn’t that unreasonable of Jesus? Until you realize that the leaves on the tree represent that it should be bearing fruit. And so this tree, y’all are absolutely right.

This tree is a symbol of Israel that looks good outwardly, but is not actually producing fruit. Used it as a spiritual tool. The fig tree event, there’s some little details that people like to seize on.

I think I got into that once before, so I don’t want to spend too much time on it unless you have questions. But they finished up with the fig tree. It started withering almost immediately.

That doesn’t mean they stuck around and watched it, though. So he goes to the temple. He gets done with the fig tree.

They continue on into Jerusalem. He gets to the temple, and what does he see? Money changers.

Money changers. Money changers and merchants. and he is upset with these people because they are taking advantage of the people.

Some of it is they’re selling things at exorbitant rates. They are just being dishonest. Another thing is they’re set up in the court of the Gentiles and there are Gentile converts in Jerusalem or not even converts really who have come to Jerusalem because they recognize the God of Israel and they’ve come to worship during the Passover over and the only part of the temple they can go into to worship has been taken over for these crooked dealings and Jesus has just had enough and what does he do? Turns their tables over.

I can’t remember now suddenly if this is the time when he has a whip when he does it, makes a whip, throws them out. He won’t let them carry any kind of merchandise or products through there. He just, he cleans house.

And this is the second time he did it. Because John records an event at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry where he went in and did the same thing. And it’s kind of like, how many times do I have to teach you this lesson?

But he comes in and does it again. How did the people react to, how did the higher ups react to this? Made them angry.

And they began to ask him, you know, what authority do you have for doing these things? I don’t see I may have accidentally cut out a section here I see where I put Jesus teaches in the temple but there’s you know what there’s more that comes there’s more that comes later I’m looking at the wrong day here yeah he cleansed the temple and then he continued to teach there and then when it was night time after a long day of teaching in the temple and cleaning up the temple he went back to Bethany stayed overnight Tuesday he came back On the way back, they discovered the dead fig tree. This is why I pointed out that there are different routes in and out of the city, and you might use one coming in and one going home because of the steepness of each route.

Skeptics will say, well, if the fig tree withered away almost immediately, why would they be surprised to see the fig tree? Well, they probably didn’t go home by the same route, besides which it was probably getting dark. They weren’t paying attention to the fig tree.

But they see the fig tree, and they’re shocked. Not only that it died, but it was dead. There was no life in this big tree at all.

And in just a matter of a day, they see the difference here and they’re shocked. Jesus begins to teach them about the power of faith, the importance of faith and how faith can move mountains. Jesus goes back to the temple and begins to teach.

And this is actually where the confrontation worsens because they are furious over him cleansing the temple the day before. And they ask him, who gives you the authority to do the things that you’re doing? Who told, what gives you the right?

And he says, okay, let me ask you a question. He says, the baptism of John, is it from God or from men? Answer that for me and I’ll tell you where my authority comes from.

And on the surface, it seems like this has nothing to do with what they just asked him. But they struggle with an answer. They can’t say, well, it’s from God, because then Jesus’ question is, then why did you oppose him?

They can’t say it’s from man because it’s not good for them politically. The people like John the Baptist. They can’t answer truthfully because they’re more committed to other things. And when they say we can’t answer, Jesus says, then I’m not going to answer your question.

Because he’s saying, I’m not about to try to explain the depths of a subject like my spiritual authority to somebody who don’t recognize God’s authority to begin with. And so it’s not Jesus abating it. It’s Jesus putting them back on the defensive.

Then there’s this succession of people that come trying to challenge Jesus. The Pharisees and Herodians come to Jesus and think, ah, we can get him in trouble with the Romans. Is it lawful for us to pay the tax?

and that’s when Jesus has them bring out a coin and says what who’s on the coin yeah render to Caesar what is Caesar give Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and give God the things that are God’s and they they just they have no answer for that and then the Sadducees see that these two are humiliated and think gee let’s get in on that the Sadducees don’t believe in a resurrection. They don’t believe in an afterlife. They don’t believe in most of the supernatural aspects of the Jewish religion.

And so they come to Jesus with the most bizarre story they can come up with based on the law of Moses, that this woman is married to a man and he dies. And so she marries his brother and he dies and she marries all seven brothers and they all die. And then she dies.

And who is she married to in the resurrection? And Jesus said, you don’t know anything about God’s word. Because he says in the, because their point is, if you can’t explain this where we can understand it, then the resurrection is not true.

And the example I’ve given you, I’ve given you many examples, but I think I’ve given you the one that I can’t explain to you in great detail how a nuclear bomb works. But that doesn’t mean they don’t happen, right? Just because I fail to grasp something doesn’t mean that it’s not real. And so Jesus says, you don’t understand God’s word at all.

You’re ignorant here. And says to them that in the resurrection, men are neither married nor given in marriage, but are like the angels. He doesn’t say we become angels, but he says in that regard, we’re like the angels.

And it kind of shuts them down. Well, some of the Pharisees look at this because the Pharisees and Sadducees hate each other. The Pharisees are the legalist fundamentalists of their day and the Sadducees are the liberals of their day and they hate each other.

And so the Pharisees say, some of the Pharisees see that he has thoroughly embarrassed the Sadducees and say, okay, maybe he knows some things. Maybe he’s not all bad. And there, I will say when it comes to the interpretation of the law, Jesus probably would side more with the Pharisees than the Sadducees.

It’s just the Pharisees didn’t actually do what they taught. And so one of the Pharisees comes to Jesus with what seems to be a legitimate question. It says, what’s the greatest commandment?

And Jesus said, the greatest commandment is what? Love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. That’s right.

Love God with everything you’ve got, is paraphrasing it. And then Jesus adds a bonus to it and says, the second is like it, which is what? Love your neighbor as yourself.

Yeah, on these two commands, all the law and the prophets. Basically, if you could do both of these things perfectly, all the other stuff that the law and the prophets talk about would take care of itself. And at this point, they’re pretty, they’re finding it hard to raise an objection that they think he’s not going to shoot down.

They’re almost speechless. Well, now Jesus begins to teach, and he uses the Psalms to point to the fact that the Messiah they were looking for was not only the son of David, but also somebody that David recognized as his Lord. Because they’re looking for a human Messiah that’s going to keep up the Romans, and Jesus is pointing them to the fact that the Messiah is actually the Son of God.

Then he begins to teach the people about the religious leaders and goes into one of the most scathing sermons outlining, if I recall correctly, seven or eight different major themes about what’s wrong with these people that are standing around challenging him. How do you think they felt about that? Not real happy.

And they began to plot against Jesus. Meanwhile, as he’s about to call it a day, Jesus is sitting there at the temple or near the temple. And he sees a woman go drop in everything she’s got into the temple treasury.

Real quietly, as all these rich people go through, making a big fuss about what they’re bringing. She quietly drops in two small coins. And Jesus said she did what?

She gave more than all the rest of them. And to understand how poor this woman was, I did the math at one point and shared this with you, that it’s really hard to convert their money to our money. So looking at what an average day’s laborer would make and how much compared to our minimum wage, it was like the nearest I can tell is it was the equivalent of her entire life savings being 91 cents.

And she put that in there. And he said it was worth more than those who gave millions, which was just as much a commendation of her as it was a condemnation of the others. Jesus goes back out to Bethany, spends the night, comes back to Jerusalem in the morning.

I’m sorry, as he’s walking out to Bethany, he preaches the Olivet Discourse because they’re looking at the temple as they’re watching this woman drop the coins in. And the disciples are thinking, Lord, what a beautiful temple. And he says, yeah, one of these days, not a stone on that building, or it’s going to be standing on top of each other.

And the disciples say, wait a minute, back up. We need more information about that. That’s a pretty, I mean, the temple is God’s house, God’s headquarters.

And you’re telling us that’s going to be gone. That was unthinkable to them. We need more information.

Well, he spends multiple chapters talking about the end of the age. Some of it talking about what’s going to happen to Israel during that invasion I mentioned in AD 70 by the Romans. Some of it talking about the second coming.

Some of it talking about the tribulation mixed in together. But he does that as they’re sitting on the Mount of Olives after they’ve gone out of the city. And they’re just looking back at the city.

And he explains all these signs that are going to come. Then they call it a night. And in the morning, Wednesday morning, they go back to Jerusalem.

One of the big questions that’s asked all the time is, what was he doing Wednesday? Because the Bible doesn’t tell us what he did Wednesday. The Bible does tell us what he did Wednesday.

If we go back to Luke 21, 37 and 38, he went to Bethany at night. He went back to the temple in the morning and he talked. Yeah, that’s right.

He went to church. It just doesn’t record exactly what was said. It’s one of those things that I would like to know, but God didn’t think I needed to know.

We know at that same time, whatever Jesus said on Wednesday, in addition to what he had said Monday and Tuesday, the religious leaders are now royally hacked off. And they begin plotting. And they’re saying, how can we get him?

How can we get this guy? They’re making plans, but they’re realizing none of their plans are going to work because they require them to try to grab this guy while he’s there in the temple. And the people are kind of interested.

I’m not saying the people support him, but the people are kind of interested to hear what he’s got to say. especially the Galileans that are in town. So that’s Wednesday.

Wednesday, he heads back to Bethany, and there’s an event early in the evening where some people throw him a supper in Bethany, and a woman comes and breaks a container of oil over his head. The disciples are a little irritated about this because of the waste of money. Judas, in particular, is upset because she should have sold that and given us the money to care for the poor.

And the Gospels tell us what Judas’ real concern was. Do you remember? Why was Judas upset?

He was skimming money, putting his own pocket. And if she had brought this big donation, that’s more for Judas. There are concerns that are raised about the Gospel accounts of the anointing because people say, well, they don’t all make sense.

They don’t all fit together. There are contradictions. It’s because there are three.

If you start comparing the details, it has to be three different events. There was one that I believe, okay, John and Luke each describe another one. One happened a few days before this, a few days before the triumphal entry, and one happened at the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry.

They’re in different locations. They’re at different times. They’re similar, but they have to be different.

And so when you realize that, that Matthew and Mark are describing one event, Luke is describing another, and John is describing a third, well, then the contradictions kind of melt away. So Jesus is at this supper in the early evening. Judas, meanwhile, he’s just mad about everything, and now the money on top of it, and he starts making plans to betray Jesus.

And this is kind of music to the religious leaders’ ears when this offer comes, because now we have a plan that we can do this secretly, and it doesn’t require us causing a ruckus in Jerusalem while all these Galileans are here. Then Jesus stays overnight in Bethany, returns to Jerusalem again Thursday morning. Thursday is the day that the Passover lambs are sacrificed.

So there’s a lot of activity in Jerusalem, a lot of activity in and around the temple. Jesus’ teaching. We know that because Luke 21, 37 and 38.

And we know that the disciples come to Jesus and say, where would you like us to go to prepare the Passover? There’s this seeming contradiction. I say seeming because it’s not one, where Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe the Lord’s Supper, the Last Supper, and the crucifixion and the Passover and the relationship between the two between all of them.

And John describes it differently where they say they can’t all make sense together. And some people have tried to say, well, we can erase that problem by saying that the Last Supper is not a Passover. But Jesus told his disciples to go and prepare the Passover.

They came to him and said, where do you want us to make ready for the Passover? So on Thursday, that’s what they’re busy doing while he’s teaching, is they’re getting the Passover ready. I’ll explain to you briefly in just a moment, how we deal with that, because it’s not a contradiction.

They’re preparing for the Passover while Jesus teaches in the temple. Tonight, though, as it begins to get dark, Jesus does not go back to Bethany. They’ve made special arrangements there in Jerusalem to have the Passover there.

Passover begins at sunset. You’ll notice somebody asked me what this word was. I’ve never thought to look up the pronunciation.

I recognize it as a month in the Jewish calendar, but I’ve never thought to look up the pronunciation. I say Nissan. That’s probably not what it is.

That’s a car company. But you see where it says on each of these on the handout, 14th of Nissan, 15th of Nissan. Those were their days.

The Passover meal happens on the 15th of Nissan, and their dates start over at sunset. They go from sunset to sunset, where ours go from midnight to midnight. So for them, the Passover started Thursday evening at sunset.

Jesus got together with his disciples in the upper room there in Jerusalem, and they had the last supper. He taught all throughout the supper. He began with washing their feet.

He poured the wine. He mentioned that one of the disciples was going to betray him. They broke the bread together.

He even pointed out later in the evening, it’s like there’s a little bit of showmanship in this, in a good way. It’s Jesus. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with the way he did it.

But he lets them in on a little bit of the details at a time. Hey, somebody here is going to betray me. Hey, it’s one sitting near me.

Hey, it’s the one that I handed the morsel to that I dipped and then he hands it to Judas. So there are these multiple steps in him kind of breaking the news to them for them to understand that somebody is going to betray him and it’s going to be Judas. The Gospels say that they were confused when Judas says, was it I?

Is it me? Knowing full well it is. And Jesus says, you’ve said it.

What you’re going to do, go do quickly. And Judas gets up and leaves. And the disciples don’t understand why Judas just left, even though he’s the betrayer.

But that same spot, it explains why they were confused. They thought he sent Judas on an errand. Just because Judas was the betrayer, they didn’t understand that meant Judas was going to do this tonight.

The disciples were still confused about the timeline. So he’s teaching, he’s pouring the wine, he’s explaining, he’s trying to get through to them about what’s about to happen. They finally finish the supper, they get up to leave for Gethsemane, and Jesus teaches and he prays along the way.

In John, there’s three whole chapters that are just things that Jesus said on the way out to Gethsemane. You think that’s three whole chapters. But just saying these things as they’re walking, he can get through just reciting all of this in a fairly short walk.

They get to the Garden of Gethsemane. That’s where he’s headed to. And he goes to kneel down and pray in the garden.

He tells most of the disciples. There are 11 of them there. He tells, what would it be, eight of them?

Wait here. I’m going to go pray. You’ve got your Bible open.

Did he take three or four? I’m normally, did he take three or four deeper with him into the garden? I’m normally right on top of this.

Who? Peter. Okay, so there were three.

Okay. I get up in front of y’all and I start to second guess myself about these things. And I don’t want to tell you wrong.

So he tells eight of them, stay there and pray. He takes three of them in deeper with him into the garden and tells them to sit there and pray close to him while he goes just a little further. and he’s praying.

Well, he comes back and finds them asleep. Wakes them up. Says, I asked you to p