Holy Wednesday
MARCH 27
The One With Real Authority
Devotional by Nick Roen, Pastor for Worship & Education
And every day he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and lodged on the mount called Olivet. And early in the morning all the people came to him in the temple to hear him. Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people.—Luke 21:37–22:2
The Wednesday before Jesus’s death is fairly quiet. But notice two things that matter in these verses.
First, Jesus continues to go every day from the Mount of Olives where he was lodging to the temple to teach the crowds. He knows where he is headed, he understands the suffering that is only a couple of days away. And yet he goes about preaching to the people about the Kingdom of God. And he does so at the temple, the very place that he said would be torn down and built up again in three days (John 2:19–21). He knows where the authority lies. It’s with him. He brings the Kingdom, he is in control, he fulfills what the temple has been pointing to all along—the presence of God with man (Revelation 21:3).
The crowds seem to see it. Luke says that all the people come to hear him, which at least means a large crowd. The people might not understand all of the details of what’s about to happen, or how Jesus will prove himself victorious, but they do know there’s something different with this guy. Jesus commands their attention. But not everyone believes.
While this is going on, the Sanhedrin meet in order to plot Jesus’s arrest and eventual death. Speaking of these same events, Matthew adds,
Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and plotted together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people.”—Matthew 26:3–5
Notice who they think is in control. They think they have Jesus dead to rights on charges of blasphemy, and have already decided that his end is near. So they plot, like kids moving around fake army men with pretend authority and imagined outcomes. “Not during the feast, we don’t want to make people upset. Let’s wait until afterwards. That will be the smoothest.”
And all the while, Jesus is teaching at the temple; God among his disciples, showing his authority the whole time. It’s a stark contrast. So who will win in the end?
Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.—Psalm 2:1–4
