This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, The Crown.
To the east of the city of Jerusalem, there is a limestone ridge called the Mount of Olives. On the western slope is a garden with eight ancient olive trees. Tradition says those trees have been growing there since the time of Christ—in the very spot where Jesus came to pray during passion week, the week before His crucifixion.
Consider what took place among those trees two thousand years ago.
Holy week, the week of Christ’s crucifixion, was also Passover week for the Jews—as foretold by Old Testament prophecies.
Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. ...So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road (Matthew 21:1-2, 6-8).
Jesus is being celebrated. Palm branches have been laid carefully in the road to mark the pathway of a king. One would think He would be joyful at this moment. But He knows what is ahead of Him. He knows the very people hailing His presence will be nailing Him to a cross. And He knows something else the people of Jerusalem do not know, so He laments:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37, KJV).
No one is excluded from Jesus that Palm Sunday!
Jesus is weeping, and saying, "and ye would not." He’s saying, “I would have but you wouldn't.” If He were saying, I would have but you couldn't, the whole thing would be a great charade. If it were all settled, if some were predestined to Heaven and some were predestined to Hell, Jesus would be saying, “you couldn’t be gathered to Me.” No, He says, “you wouldn’t come.”
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
This garden where these ancient olive trees grow is called Gethsemane. Jesus would often come to this place to pray—but this night, the Thursday of holy week, is different.
Jesus has been in Jerusalem, up on Mount Zion. There in an upper room He has had the Last Supper with his disciples. He has talked about His coming crucifixion and, prior to that, His betrayal. Judas Iscariot has gone out into the darkness to do that dastardly deed.
Then the Lord Jesus needs prayer. He comes down Mount Zion and crosses the brook Kidron. When the priests made animal sacrifices on the temple mount, the blood would run down the mountain into this brook, Kidron. When Jesus leaves that upper room and crosses the valley, that brook is running crimson with Passover blood.
Surely it must remind Him that, soon, His blood will flow in that same spot from Moriah, the temple mount.
Jesus comes to the garden of Gethsemane, kneels at that rock of agony, and prays three times…
…Saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
He is using a figure of speech, a symbol meaning that He is about to take something into His very being.
Jesus knows that soon, even God the Father must turn His back on Him. Jesus will drink that cup of God’s wrath alone.
And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
What was in that “cup”? What was so loathsome, so terrifying, that Jesus shrank in horror from it?
Every vile thought, every wicked deed, every hurtful, hateful thing—all of the sin of all God’s people all over the world, from the past and the future. Distill it down: that was in this cup.
You may not understand what sin is, but Jesus Christ knew. He knew that when He drank that metaphorical cup, He would be numbered with the transgressors. (See Isaiah 53:12.) And He whose name is Holy, who is the complete antithesis of sin, would become sin.
And God the Father would have to treat Jesus as if He had committed all of those sins.
Still, Christ accepted it.
Judas brought the soldiers to Jesus in the Garden, and He was taken to His mock trial and torment.
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (Matthew 27:27-29).
Though it was an idea from a cruel mind, Jesus being crowned with thorns was a part of a drama written before the world was swung into space.
Thorns are the sign of the curse of sin upon humanity. (Read Genesis 3:17-18.)
Jesus wore that crown because Jesus bore that curse.
That crown was placed upon Jesus’ head, on the temples, one of the most sensitive parts of the human body. “Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head” (Matthew 27:30). They had battered that face, loosened his teeth. Blood ran down, mingled with their filthy spittle. “So His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14b).
Do you think that Jesus died as a helpless victim? No. Jesus’ death was no accident. What God ordained ahead of time, happened. He was in perfect control.
And when they had mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, put His own clothes on Him, and led Him away to be crucified (Matthew 27:31).
Crucifixion was meant to be cruel and unusual punishment. It was meant to inspire stark terror.
They would drive nails through the victim’s wrist, between the metacarpals, into the cross, so the body would not fall. They would try to hit the median nerve.
Then the feet were nailed. The weight of the body came down on the chest and the victim would be gasping for breath. In order to breathe, he had to lift himself, but to do that, he had to push down on those nails in his feet.
There was nausea and shock and searing pain as every nerve in that body becomes a pathway for pain. The individual would stay there for an agonizingly long death.
There was this physical agony of the cross for Christ, as well as the emotional agony of Him bearing the pollution and penalty of sin.
God the Father had to look upon Christ as He would upon a sinner, and deal with Him accordingly.
But only once.
So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit (John 19:30).
Tetelestai. The debt had been paid, absolutely. Eternal life for all who would belief had been accomplished. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18; emphasis added).
Others die and they stay dead.
Jesus died and He rose again that Easter Sunday.
Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again’” (Luke 24:1-7).
What is holy boldness? It is knowing that He is risen. Jesus is alive. If you are truly, truly convinced that Jesus Christ walked out of that grave, could you ever be intimidated?
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
To make sure this went no further, the religious leaders commanded the apostles not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus.
But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:19-20).
Luke 19-23, 24:1-7; Isaiah 53:12; Matthew 27:27-31; Genesis 3:17-18; John 19:30, 20; 1 Peter 3:18; Acts 4:13,19-20
…You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:18b-19).
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin (Romans 6:4-6).
