The Way of the Master

The Way of the Master

By Larry D. Kettle January 1, 2017

John 13  It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.

         It had been a long and tiring day filled with the usual conflicts and controversies among the disciples as well as the diversity of response that Jesus had experienced from the crowds that He taught and ministered to. He had experienced many days like this but He knew it was getting close to His time to leave the world and return to the Father so there wouldn’t be many days left.  This day had been usual in many ways but unusual in the fact that there was fever pitched response to His ride on the donkey both positive and negative.  He had fulfilled Isaiah and Zechariah’s prophesy concerning the Messiah’s entry into Jerusalem.  It wasn’t what His followers were expecting and it certainly wasn’t what the Zealots of the city were hoping for.

         Jesus was longing to complete the mission that He had been sent to accomplish and He missed His heavenly Father and was excited to return to Him.  He knew however, that the road that he would be traveling for that next four days would be the hardest he had ever gone through or would ever go through again!  It would be the final fulfillment of the Passover Feast.  This would be a New Year that would mark a new era! Jesus knew that He was the true Passover Lamb and that this Passover would be the one that Israel had looked for, ever since the exodus from Egypt!  Trouble was they didn’t even know it, as they were so fixated on being delivered from their current and temporary situation with the Romans. Every Passover they had observed since the times of Moses, David, and Hezekiah were precious pictures of the hope that Israel would bring to the world through the Messiah!

   He had wept over the city as He entered it knowing that none of them including his disciples had eyes to see what was truly happening.  Even though crowds surrounded him it could have been a bit lonely but he kept his eyes and heart focused on the joy that was set before Him. His true joy was that after the suffering of His soul, he would see the light of life and be satisfied, as Isaiah had said long ago.   He knew that those innocent sheep could only cover sins from year to year and from one religious ritual to another.  These rituals were a reminder of the continual guilt that the people that He loved were oppressed by! He knew that now the cup and the bread of the new covenant would not be a reminder of guilt but would instead be a reminder of the sacrifice he would make to cleanse sin away just as if it had never happened!  He knew that the blood that He would shed would cleanse those who would believe in him from the inside out!  Their consciences would be clean and they would have hope and assurance that they could be with Him forever. And now it was the beginning of the end of the old covenant. It was a New Year and a new book was about to be written!