Holy Week Day 3: The Pharisees
Continuing our series on Holy Week from Monday. It’s Tuesday morning, Jesus and His disciples are up and begin their day as they pass the withered fig tree from yesterday. The disciples still have the words, “If you had known….” ringing in their ears as they head to the temple where many have gathered including one particular group.
The pride of the Pharisees.
But, today, was busy Tuesday.
Most of us who are told that they will soon die make every effort to cross something off their bucket-list.
Not Jesus.
He was thinking about everyone but himself as He made every minute of His life count for others to see the Light.
Oh, may we do the same.
That bright, crisp Tuesday morning, Jesus entered the temple teaching several parables on repentance.
This is why I speak to them in parables, Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. {Matthew 13:13}
He wanted them to take not of the spiritual condition of their hearts.
Talking to those who have not yet accepted Jesus as Lord - parables of warning: either you are a friend of Mine or you are My enemy.
May we all be His friend as we search our hearts finding Him Lord over us.
Ugly pride rears its head. That god of religion comes challenging with words by the Pharisees. These men were trying to trap Jesus, to get Him to say something that would reveal Him as a counterfeit as they were convinced He was.
Yet, Jesus was a little smarter than these mere men!
In Matthew 23, Jesus gives “Seven Woes” of somber words for the Pharisees. It is scary to read through this chapter and see how often we ourselves as Christians fall into the same sins as the Pharisees.
Pride.
Conceit.
Greed.
Hypocrisy.
What separates us is the spiritual principle that God has freely given us through His Son – Forgiveness.
As we repent of our sins, we look to Jesus to take our sins away, the Pharisees never did.
The sun is now setting this busy Tuesday and Jesus concludes with conversation on the end of the earth.
Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. {Matthew 24:44}
We don’t know when Jesus is going to come again and so we need to be prepared at all times. We do not know that when He comes we will be taken away to eternal life, and all because of the work Jesus was accomplishing on Holy Week.
What a beautiful, selfless love is this, that Jesus would spend his last hours not crossing off His bucket-list, but offering His loving forgiveness to those in the process of orchestrating His murder.
Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”
Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no other commandment greater than these.” {Mark 12:28-31}
Holy Week Series
Palm Sunday Day One: The Branch or The Hammer
Monday Day Two: The Fig Tree
