Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.
When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”
“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”
Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.
Now it was the governor’s custom at the festival to release a prisoner chosen by the crowd. At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” For he knew it was out of self-interest that they had handed Jesus over to him.
While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him this message: “Don’t have anything to do with that innocent man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.”
But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.
“Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.
“Barabbas,” they answered.
“What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.
They all answered, “Crucify him!”
“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children!”
Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.
As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. Above his head they placed the written charge against him: this is jesus, the king of the jews.
Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.
As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb.
The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”
“Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

• Matthew 27:1-66

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.
In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”
Yet you brought me out of the womb;
    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.
From birth I was cast on you;
    from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Do not be far from me,
    for trouble is near
    and there is no one to help.

• Psalm 22:1-11

They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

• John 8:6

“Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and no people building up a legend would allow-that to be so. Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence. In the story of the woman taken in adultery we are told Christ bent down and scribbled in the dust with His finger. Nothing comes of this. No one has ever based any doctrine on it. And the art of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is a purely modern art. Surely the only explanation of this passage is that the thing really happened? The author put it in simply because he had seen it.”

• C.S. Lewis, Preparing for Easter (from God is the Dock, chapter “What are we to make of Jesus Christ?”)

Boilerplate

First, the concept of Lent is the preparation for what is to come, the anniversary of Christ’s death and resurrection between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  But in some denominations, the entire time from Advent, the anticipation of Christ’s coming (remembrance of His birth but preparation for His return) to Easter (Christ’s resurrection from the dead)…  This bracket of time is a celebration of the entire life of Jesus Christ on earth.  Christ’s conception to His ascension and on to the Holy Spirit coming upon the Apostles at Pentecost can be presented and celebrated from early December until Pentecost Sunday.

Many denominations only focus on Christmas and Easter, or maybe the entirety of Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Easter, and then may or may not focus on Pentecost.

But for those that recognize Lent, the Lenten season in many denominations has an element of fasting.  Sadly, this is done as Jesus teaches us not to do.  They make a big deal out of it when we should do it in private, something just between us and God.  But that tradition stems from the forty days of fasting that Jesus did in the wilderness after His baptism and before His ministry started.  The Lenten season is kicked off on Ash Wednesday.  And after forty days, we reach Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.  The concept of ashes is symbolized by at least one denomination having a cross painted on their forehead in ashes, sometimes from burning the palm fronds from the previous Palm Sunday the year before.  Again, that draws attention to the fact that they have started their fast.  But they are also announcing that they are Christians.  There is good and bad there.

So, when we are in the Lenten season, what should we focus on?  It depends.  We should focus on Jesus, but we might want to focus on our service to God.  What can we do better?  How can we spread the Gospel?  From Conception to Pentecost…  His mission was completed on earth, but He left us with something to do.

As for the Lewis book, it comes from a compilation of Lewis’ writings, edited by Zachry Kincaid.  In the book, there is a devotion, of sorts, from Ash Wednesday through Easter Sunday, the Lenten Season.  Each devotion contains suggested Scriptures and a writing of C.S. Lewis.

Last year, I used my free time posts, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday afternoons (EST) to correspond with that day’s devotion in the book.  I am picking a day that I did not use last year.

Discussion

Note: In this time slot, I usually have a quote about aging that my wife wrote into a notebook. I will return to that mini-series next week with a quote from Roy Acuff.

C.S. Lewis passed away before early manuscripts that do not contain the story at the beginning of John 8 were found.  Did a scribe add the story, or is there an earlier manuscript that contains the story that has not been found?  The Good News that Jesus is the promised Messiah and He died to save us from our sin does not change, with or without this story.

But two of the gospels were written by eyewitnesses.  Scholars think that Peter dictated most of the Gospel of Mark to John Mark who also helped Paul in his ministry.  Peter was an eyewitness.  Luke starts his gospel by explaining that he pieced everything together from eyewitnesses.

Thus, what the gospels contain came from eyewitness accounts.  Lewis’ assertion that we can take the stories at face value due to the author’s having seen it is true.

Lewis, in his academic field, studied ancient writings.  If anyone was qualified to distinguish between an eyewitness story and a legend that may or may not have been true, then Lewis was highly qualified.  That is the point he is making in this paragraph above.  The Gospels do not read smoothly as legend should read, but they read quite well as an eyewitness report of what they saw.

But beyond the eyewitness accounts, the teachings of Jesus were given in metaphor and parable forms.  Jesus would add, “Those who have ears can hear.”  If someone were deaf, he would not have heard Jesus say those words.  And what Jesus meant is that with Jesus in our heart and the Holy Spirit guiding us, we could understand the imagery of Jesus’ teachings.  Otherwise, the teachings could easily be dismissed as foolishness.

Why?  God wants Heaven to be filled with people that really want to be in His presence.  And to know enough to want Jesus in our heart, we must desire to be with God here on earth.  With that desire, there is a hunger to know more, and with that hunger we understand more about Jesus.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.