Final Week 

 

Sometimes, words alone didn’t work, and the prophets themselves became living embodiments of God’s message. Jeremiah, for instance, walked around Jerusalem with a wooden yoke on his neck (Jeremiah 27:2), calling on the people to submit to God. Jesus stands in this tradition of faithful prophets who not only spoke God’s word but also performed symbol-laden actions in order to make a point.

 

Thus it is that Jesus’ act of gathering twelve disciples can be seen as a symbol of gathering the twelve tribes of Israel to be a renewed people of God. Thus it is that his eating and drinking with society’s outcasts effectively redraws the boundaries of holiness and redefines who is acceptable to dine in God’s kingdom.

 

Many of Jesus’ significant symbolic acts are clustered in the final week of his ministry. According to Matthew 21, he enters Jerusalem in deliberate fulfillment of a messianic prophecy (Zechariah 9:9–10). The hopes of the prophets (and of the people on the Jerusalem streets, singing Psalm 118:25–26) were that God would one day establish a son of David on the throne in Jerusalem and restore the fortunes of the people. That day is now dawning — except that Jesus chooses to ride on a beast of burden rather than a war-horse. What follows is Jesus’ action in the temple, the place to which God's messenger of the covenant’ would come (Malachi 3:1–5). Whether this dramatic incident should be understood as a cleansing of the temple from its abuses, to restore it as a place of prayer for Jew and non-Jew alike, or whether it should be seen as symbolic of God’s forthcoming judgment on the temple, Jesus’ action issues a challenge to the religious authorities, which sets in motion the controversies of the final week leading to his arrest and trial.

 

Then, stepping aside with his disciples — as he breaks bread and pours wine — he reshapes the Passover meal around his own forthcoming death, which will bring about a new release from bondage. More than this, the new covenant between God and his people includes the forward-looking promise of eating and drinking again in the future kingdom. But it is Jesus’ death that makes possible the future feast for which we hope.

 

Jesus’ actions challenge us to reflect on the true meaning of his kingship: power and glory, yes, but in humility and obedience. And he encourages us, as he encouraged the disciples, to model our lives after the pattern of his death, that we might love him and serve each other.

 

We anticipate the dawn of a new day in the resurrection, but, for the moment at least, we pause at Good Friday — and pause we must, for the biblical story makes no sense without the events of this day. As we pause, we join with Christians around the globe and through the ages who have confessed the centrality of Christ’s work on the cross, for our faith makes no sense without it.

 

The cross, of course, is where the Gospels — and Jesus — have been heading since the start. As he dies, he takes on the role of the servant spoken of in Isaiah 53, suffering and dying on behalf of others. The fact that it happens at Passover time gives his death an ‘exodus’ flavor, as Jesus brings about a new release for the people of God, inaugurating a new covenant in his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.

 

The predicament of human beings, so apparent in the biblical story — our rebellion against God and the judgment it deserves — is dealt with at the cross, interpreted in the early church as a demonstration of God’s love and as a victory over the powers of darkness. This sacrifice of one in the place of others is what makes forgiveness possible, bringing about reconciliation with God and with each other, and more besides.

 

The work of the cross is applied personally, though not privately, for it is the place where the wisdom and power of God are demonstrated to the world. Paul makes clear the comprehensive nature of what has been accomplished — not just on our behalf but on behalf of the whole of creation. Jesus’ death is God’s chosen means of restoring ‘all things’, liberating men and women, and creation itself, from sin and bondage, with the guarantee that one-day evil will be removed completely.

 

So the cross stands not just at the peak of the Gospels but at the climax of the entire history of salvation. Everything in the biblical story leads up to and away from this point; everything is understood in the light it casts, a light extending forward to the final victory when all things will be fully restored.

 

Meanwhile, that light illuminates our discipleship and mission as we seek to make sense of the cross and be shaped by it, knowing that we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

 

A new day, a new dawn — a new creation. Just as the first infinitesimal part of a second at the beginning of the universe was a unique and unrepeated moment, so the resurrection of Jesus — Saviour, Lord, and God — was the first, unique, unprecedented, unparalleled moment when God’s promised new creation began. Without the resurrection, the cross is a defeat; there is no forgiveness, no salvation, no new life, and no hope beyond death. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory over death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

We know that our declaration of faith, ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body’, will be fulfilled for us who are his, when he comes again in glory and the new heaven and the new earth are fully realised. ‘With Jesus of Nazareth there is not simply a new religious possibility, not simply a new ethic or a new way of salvation, but a new creation.’

 

It took some time for the amazing truth of the resurrection, with all its stunning implications, to dawn on the disciples. We see a progression from their disbelief when the women came back from the tomb and told them it was so, to Peter’s Spirit-filled sermon at Pentecost and Paul’s dramatic words to the Colossians: ‘He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him’ (1:18–19).

 

Meanwhile, what are the implications for everyday life?

 

Because the early Christians believed that ‘resurrection’ had begun with Jesus, and would be completed in the great final resurrection on the last day, they believed that God had called them to work with him, in the power of the Spirit, to implement the achievement of Jesus and thereby to anticipate the final resurrection, in personal and political life, in mission and holiness.

Those who belong to Jesus are called to whole-life discipleship, to the resurrection life of the kingdom, whereby in every corner of our lives we are charged with transforming the present, as far as we were able, in the light of that future.