#lenten devotions

Read Luke 24:13-53

Luke is the only gospel to record for us this account of Jesus appearing to some disciples on the road to Emmaus.  When we encounter these disciples, they are downcast and disheartened over the events of that last couple of days.  They are confused by the reports of the women and the other disciples who talk about an empty tomb and angels telling them that Jesus is alive.  Jesus draws near to them on the road, and yet we are told, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”  But look at what our Lord does.  He opened their eyes to the mysteries of Scripture, unfolding for them how all of God’s Word pointed to Him, specifically the necessity for the Christ to suffer (in accord with the past week’s events) and then enter into glory.  Next, Jesus reveals himself to them in the breaking of bread.  When the two join up with other disciples those are the points they mention.  They tell them about what happened on the road and then how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.  

He walks with us as well, on this post Easter road of faith.  We have heard that the tomb is empty. We have heard others tell us that the angels said he rose again.  But he also walks with us, still opening our eyes to the mysteries of Scripture.  He invites us to hear with earnestness how all of Scripture directs us to see how he bore our sins and how we have the promise of life.  He invites us to recognize him in the breaking of bread as we join in the feast of His church, the Lord’s Supper.  Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!  

Prayer

Read Luke 23:50-56

Read Luke 24:1-12

Good Friday began with the Sanhedrin, the religious council, leading the charge to put our Lord to death.  But now we hear about Joseph.  He was a member of that same council, but had been a dissenting voice because he was looking for the Kingdom of God.  Now, on this day of preparation for the Sabbath, he prepares for burial the very body of the one who ushers in God’s kingdom.  

The crucifixion had taken place with a crowd gathered. Those crowds dispersed, beating their breasts as they returned home.  But we also hear about the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee.  They had stood at a distance and then followed Joseph as he took Jesus’ body to the tomb.   On this day of preparation they return home to prepare spices and ointments, anticipating the final burial arrangements of Jesus’ body after the Sabbath.  But as the women come looking for Jesus’ body, on Sunday morning we learn that, it was God who was making preparations all along. The body isn’t there for the One who ushered in the Kingdom of God, which Joseph and so many others had been looking for all along, had come back to life.

Prayer 

Read Luke 22:63-71

Read Luke 23:1-49

Jesus endures trials before every authority available: the religious courts, the Roman governor and King Herod.  During these ordeals He is repeatedly mocked and beaten.  Despite the accusations, Herod and Pilate both determine Jesus is innocent.  Pilate even attempts to release Jesus three times, but the accusations of the religious authorities continue and, despite being declared innocent, Jesus is sentenced to death.  He endured a punishment that seeks to extract every ounce of suffering and pain from the convicted while being executed.  

The charges may have been trumped up, the trial a sham, and the punishment particularly cruel, but Christ was in control.  He was silent before Herod.  He did not plead his innocence before others.  The only testimony he would give was to confirm the truth: that he is the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man.  He is innocent, but not simply a victim of a miscarriage of justice. This was the plan. He is the Savior, my Savior, your Savior.  

Scripture is clear, and, if we can muster up the honesty for full self-examination and disclosure, we would see that there is no need for trumped up charges, or a sham of a trial to find us horrendously guilty before the Almighty God.    But in God’s court our Lord Jesus declares, “Father, forgive them.”  He places his innocence on us, having taken our sin upon himself.  As unbelievable and impossible as it sounds, God seeks to pour out every ounce of grace and mercy upon us.

Prayer  

Read Luke 22:1-62

“Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.”  The disciples had eaten many meals with Jesus, which of course included the breaking of bread, but this meal would be different.  There had been many Passover meals to recall the Lord’s act of deliverance and salvation in the Exodus, but this meal would be different.  When Jesus breaks this bread, he tells his disciples it is his body.  With this cup that they drink, he tells them it is his blood.  On a night when the disciples thought they were coming together to remember God’s acts of salvation in the past, the Lord’s salvation sits in their midst.  At the end of the night, the Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7) will be betrayed and arrested; he is only hours away from the sacrifice for our redemption.  But before that time our Lord institutes a sacred meal, to be celebrated again and again.  It is a new covenant for our forgiveness, for our strength, for our unification in Christ and each other, where we are given a foretaste of the heavenly feast that is yet to come. “Its greatest significance lies in what it bestows: the real presence of Christ, his very body and blood, offered up in death on a cross and now given with the bread and wine for the forgiveness of sins and life eternal.”1

Prayer  

Blessed Savior, you give me, in this sacred meal, your very body and blood for my forgiveness.  Gather me with my brothers and sisters in Christ to receive this gift often, remembering, confessing, and proclaiming your holy cross, passion and death. Strengthen and preserve me in faith until the day of your coming, that with all the saints I may celebrate in the feast of your Kingdom.  Amen.  

Read Luke 21:5-38

Jesus spends some significant time in this final week teaching about “last things.”  On the one hand, He makes reference to the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem (which would take place around 70 A.D.), but he also refers to the judgement that is to come at the end of the world (which we still await).  In his movement back and forth between those things, Jesus talks about how the Kingdom of God is near.  There always seems to be so much emphasis put on having a sign.  It was back in chapter 11 where Jesus said no sign would be given but the sign of Jonah.  “For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation…for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here” (Luke 11:30)  That sign also corresponds to three days in the belly of a giant fish and three days in the tomb for our Lord (see Matthew 12:40).  

The Kingdom of God is near because it is ushered in by the presence of Jesus and his ministry in the world, all of which is validated by his resurrection (Luke 17:21).  For us it has already been ushered in and yet we live in a time where it has not yet come in all its fullness because there is the resurrection of all the saints that will take place on the last day.  The details of this section of Jesus’ teaching gives us understanding that God allows the powers of evil to exercise dominion in this world at various times, but that it is limited and a day will come when it will completely come to an end.  To the first hearers of Luke’s Gospel this is reassurance in the face of persecution that God is in control and their redemption is near.  Nearly 2000 years later we have that same comfort.  Our God is in control and our redemption is near.

Prayer 

Read Luke 20:27-47

Read Luke 21:1-4

There were all sorts of religious sects at the time of Jesus.  The Sadducees were ones who rejected a spiritual world, rejected the notion of angels and demons, and denied much of God’s Word, accepting only the books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy).  Holding on to only those books, they were zealous for interpreting Mosaic law more literally than any other groups and were very precise in Levitical purity.  As is stated in our text, they denied the resurrection.  Those things all come together as they look to take a law and practice (put in place to provide protections and care to widows without a son who would be vulnerable and disadvantaged in society) and carry it out to a ridiculous extreme for the purpose of discrediting the possibility of the resurrection and eternal life.

Jesus cuts right to the one source they would listen to (the Books of Moses, Exodus 3 to be exact) in order to be clear.  There is a full and certain hope in eternal life.  There is a full and certain hope in the resurrection for those in the Lord.  For, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live in him.”  We are less than a week away from when Christ will prove without doubt that he indeed is the Lord of life and the Lord of the living.  He will be crucified in order to give life to those who otherwise are dead and he will rise again, showing that death cannot hold him nor can it cancel out the power of his life-giving promise.  We may continue to find people ready to bring arguments to ridiculous conclusions in order to discredit what they believe to be a foolish hope in the resurrection.  But Jesus reminds us that we are already part of that ever-living community with the angels and all the saints who have come and gone before us, including Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for our God is the God of the living.

Prayer