Title: Faith Together (Matthew 26:36-46)
A thief broke into a certain house. The masked thief raised his sword and shouted. “Raise your hands!” The terrified owner trembled and raised his hands, but only one hand and not the other. “Why don’t you raise one hand!” The thief shouted once more.
“It’s neuralgia, so I can’t lift this hand.” “What? Neuralgia I actually have neuralgia, how long has it been?” “It’s been three years.” “Yeah, I’m 10 years old. What kind of drugs do you take?” In fact, this thief was a chronic neuralgia patient, so he could not do anything else, so he started out as a thief. The thief and the owner felt a sense of unity because they were suffering from neuralgia, so they put down the knife and drank alcohol to share the pain in each other's hearts.
People who have the same problem and the same pain have the same feeling and homogeneity. Faith is to achieve homogenization. Just as Jesus Christ took on flesh and became a man, it is to conform me to the will of God.
Today is Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the week from tomorrow is Holy Week. Passion Week is the greatest climax of Jesus' life. Jesus has been steadily walking toward this path from birth.
There is no insignificant time in the life of Jesus, and there is no ministry that we should neglect, but this week is the culmination of the life of Jesus. Although Jesus was the original God, He took on the flesh and became like men.
Baptism means becoming one. He became a human being by being baptized by John in the Jordan River. By our baptism we are with him. His death became our death. His resurrection is a foreshadowing of our resurrection. All of these things were made possible through the sufferings of the cross. Faith together, the faith of identification and homogenization. It is a task of faith that we must risk our lives to accomplish.
I pray in the name of the Lord that the passion of faith to be with Jesus through the Word overflows with everyone.
1. Let's think about the meaning of suffering.
If someone is being punished severely, we wonder what crime that person has committed to receive such a punishment. No one gets punished for no reason.
Jesus came as human food in a manger in Bethlehem. He fled to Egypt to escape the threat of Herod, and then returned to his homeland. His 30 years were a period of preparation for the three years of his public life. His 33 years were for this week, and the whole 33 years of his life were for the cross.
He was captured in the Garden of Gethsemane and fell 14 times until he reached Golgotha. The road is called Via Dolorosa. On the cross, “Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” After struggling, He said “It is finished” and died. The Bible says that the reason for suffering and death is because of us.
“He was pierced for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace; and by his wounds we are healed.”
We must open our eyes to human sin and see ourselves. The Old Testament era was a time when animals were slaughtered and their blood was used to atone for human sins. Animals used as sacrifices were docile animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and pigeons. Animals had to be angled, and pigeons had their necks cut off.
He thought of his sins while killing an innocent beast. And I repented. But it was an imperfect sacrifice. They only played the role of covering up sins. But Jesus Christ atoned for all human sins once and for all. We are saved through Jesus Christ. But our sins should not be weakened or diluted because we do not offer blood sacrifices.
If people in the Old Testament era killed animals, we killed God. They spit on the Son of God, despised and mocked. They crowned him with a crown of thorns, pierced him with spears and nailed him. You must know that you are the party to that sin. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
2. Let's become partakers of suffering.
The Lord took three of his beloved disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane to offer his final prayer to carry the cross. After saying, “I am about to die, please pray for me.” He went forward and prayed, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” Drops of sweat and drops of blood.
Because he knew how great the curse of God and the pain of that cross was, he struggled and prayed earnestly with blood, sweat and tears. The word Gethsemane means “pressing frame”. It means draining all of your juices. It is right to join in that prayer and sorrow as disciples.
But what did the disciples do? Because of their physical fatigue, they collapsed and slept. I have sympathy for being tired, but this was a place I should never sleep. This is because this is the place where Jesus, who promised to follow him even to death, prayed before his death.
Before blaming Peter, John, and James, let's see what we did. The 40 days before Jesus' crucifixion are called Lent. How are you spending that Lent? Before blaming others, you must first look at yourself.
Love is about being together. Where the person I love is, I am also there. I will be with him in his pain, sorrow, and joy. So Jesus took the disciples and went to the Garden of Gethsemane. The disciples sold Jesus, denied Him, and ran away, but the women followed them up to Golgotha Hill, weeping and weeping, being pushed and trampled by soldiers.
These weak women also followed, but why did the disciples not follow? Simon of Cyrene suddenly took up the cross of the Lord in his place. But the beloved disciples they abandoned, denied, and ran away. Isn't this a self-portrait of you? Isn't this cowardice of you and me when we fight for the right and left sides of the Lord and run away from each other when trouble comes?
Today we share in the sufferings of the Lord. The Lord came to Peter, who cursed and denied that he did not know, and asked, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He comes to us today and asks the same question. “Do you love me?” Love is about being together.
Sharing joy, sorrow, and pain. Be where the Lord dwells, you too. Go to the Sea of Galilee and to the wells of Samaria. Go to the Garden of Gethsemane and pray with the Lord. Experience the pain of the Lord being torn at Golgotha.
3. The Lord of glory will repay you.
A soldier is not proud of a shiny, clean uniform. A uniform torn during training and drenched in sweat and dust is something to be proud of. A testimony to the saints, ‘The Lord has blessed me in this way’ is precious. The testimony of ‘The Lord compelled me to live this life of bearing the cross with a joyful heart’ is precious.
The Lord said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and come after me.” Paul said, “I fill the rest of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh” (Colossians 1:24).
The hours of pain are long and boring. But the price of that suffering is paid by the Lord. When he weeps, I cry, when he is in pain, I suffer too, and when he carries the cross, I must bear my cross. It's a pain. But you should be content and happy to be with him.
Jesus Christ, though he was in the form of God, did not take equality with God, but emptied himself and became in the likeness of men. He glorified God by his obedience to the will of his Father to the end. Throughout their lives, people say that life is only suffering.
What a shame it would be if there was no suffering for the Lord in the midst of that great suffering. How meaningless is a life without any work done for the Lord in all those countless years and great opportunities.
A man died and came to Jesus. Jesus tossed through the book of life for a while and said, “Your name is not there.” “Is that so? I was so busy that I believed in the Lord even though I didn’t do anything for the Lord.” “Yes, what were you so busy with?” “I was busy running my business. I also had to take care of my family. Anyway, I was crazy busy” “I always made up my mind to write down your name one day, but I was too busy to write it down.” The great ancestors of faith were the love of God that made him devote his entire life.
Jesus Christ died for all mankind. If there were only me on this earth, Jesus would have died on the cross for me. Because the Lord loved us, we ought to love Him.
Abraham Lincoln went to the market when he was young. A black family brought from Africa was being sold into slavery. They did not want to fall, so they struggled and wept. It was so pitiful that Lincoln paid money to buy the family. And then he said:
“From now on, you are free. Buy freely wherever you go.” The slave who becomes the head of the household speaks. “You have given us freedom. But now we ourselves will be your slaves.”
In fact, being Lincoln's slaves was the only way for their family to survive without being scattered. When we are set free in Jesus but are redeemed in his love, we are protected from the devil's snare and the temptations of the world.
Faith with the Lord anytime, anywhere is the only way to receive the Lord's protection and love everywhere.