We've all been hurt. We all have scars. And through a relationship with Jesus Christ,
we can all overcome and we can all be healed. Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
Hey everybody and welcome back to the sanctuary. Holy Week is in full swing. Holy what?
That is a silent question a lot of people have and only a few actually ask.
And this falls in line with what I've mentioned in the past about the church,
assuming people know about everything all of a sudden as soon as they come into the life.
Right? Now we'll get into it. And in general, these are things that people actually do know about,
but they know about them as individual little things that are kind of spread out.
And the time to talk about it is definitely here because Easter is in just a few days.
Easter is the second biggest day for the church and houses a worship as a whole.
The first of course being Christmas.
Now these are two of the most heavily attended services around the world.
So we're going to break it down from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, eight days.
And we're going to take a look at the core of what Holy Week really is.
So we're going to go through here day by day and we're going to break it down.
So on Palm Sunday, that is a day that a lot of worship locations like to pull out the palm leaves
and wave them about to and fro. And so it's here that we're going to start.
Matter of fact, some of you, if you physically went into a church this past Sunday,
you may have seen just that.
So with the scripture we're going to be reading from today, there's, of course, you know,
we go through the Gospels and we can read all about Holy Week.
So because of that though, and also for time's sake, we're going to keep it just in the book of Matthew today.
So go ahead and open up to Matthew chapter 21.
And if it seems familiar, if you seem to recognize this part of scripture,
it's because we just went through part of it last week.
All right. So Matthew chapter 21 verses one through 11, the Bible says, as they approached Jerusalem
and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples saying to them,
Go to the village ahead of you and at once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt by her.
Untie them and bring them to me.
If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and he will send them right away.
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet.
Say to daughter Zion, See your king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey and on a colt, the fowl of a donkey.
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them.
They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on.
A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
The crowds that went ahead of them, excuse me, the crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed each other.
Hosanna, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest heaven.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, Who is this?
The crowds answered, This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth and Galilee.
So it's when Jesus entered Jerusalem to recap Jesus riding on a donkey is the fulfillment made in Zechariah chapter 9 verse 9.
And at the same time, he was showing himself to be the Messiah.
And it was a humble entrance in the least fancy way possible.
The crowd there this day, they recognized him as the prophesied one.
And so they cheered. So, you know, in every Palm Sunday, this is celebrated by the church.
And it should also serve as a reminder that we should all be vigilant not to get caught up in superficial celebrations of Jesus.
And by this, I mean to make sure that we are actually celebrating Jesus, not the idolatry and the pageantry that a lot of celebration can and most often does bring.
We see Jesus entering as a king, but we also need to note that we're looking at God, God who is prepared to make his sacrifice now.
You know, Jesus is entering while others don't realize it here.
You know, he knows that this right here, this is where he is starting his path or his final his final walk, I should say, to the cross.
OK, now that brings us to Monday, Monday, where Jesus clears the temple and curses a fig tree.
What? Well, we're going to pick up in Matthew 21, verses 12 through 22. Now, the Bible says Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who are buying and selling there.
He overturned the tables of money changers and the benches of those selling doves.
It is written, he said to them, My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.
The blind and the lame came to him at the temple and he healed them.
But when the chief priest and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant.
Do you hear what these children are saying? They asked him.
Yes, Jesus replied. Have you never read from the lips of children and infants? You, Lord, have called forth your praise.
And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night early in the morning.
As Jesus was on his way to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it.
But found nothing on it except leaves.
Then he said to it, May you never bear fruit again.
Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. How did the fig tree withers so quickly? They asked.
Jesus replied, Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea and it will be done.
If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
So really we have a couple of events here. Let's look at the first one from verses 12 through 17.
This is actually the second time Jesus cleared the temple.
And take notes, he didn't just go on a rampage, flipping things over and throwing things and yelling and screaming and cursing.
No, instead, while he was driving people out, he was also citing scripture.
Why he did this is important as well. What was happening here is that the booths had been set up and focus was taken away from worshiping God.
Instead, people were being taken advantage of. They're being forced to purchase sacrificial animals under the guise of being superior to what people themselves had brought.
Also, this is being done at highly inflated prices. Not only that, but the currency exchanges for those who were coming from other regions that had different types of currency.
We still have exchanges today, but they were gouging those who brought the currency from other areas and needed to exchange it.
So it was all about making as much money as possible. And it interfered greatly with the actual worship, any possible worship.
It was pretty much just shoved out the door. Idolatry was full effect.
That's what angered Jesus. Like him, we need to ensure that anything that gets in the way of worshiping God is stopped, dead in its tracks.
Anything that takes our focus off of God is our enemy. Plain and simple.
Now, the fig tree, before moving into Tuesday, verses 17 through 22, he cursed a tree. A tree. Why? Why would he curse a tree?
Was he mad about it being fruitless? Because he was hungry and didn't have food? No.
He was making a statement with an illustration about empty religion.
You see, the tree, the tree itself, it looked good, especially from a distance. It looked real good.
You know, I was like, oh, this is a place, there's going to be something to eat here. This is going to be a good place to find something to eat.
However, once you got up to it and you took a nice look at it, you'd find that despite how beautiful it was, how nice it looked, the tree was empty.
It had nothing of substance. Looking back at the temple, it was the same.
From the outside walking in, it was a sight to behold. Absolutely beautiful. Work went into building it and then maintaining it.
So this is a gorgeous place. But once you got inside, you'd find that the sacrifices and the various activities, it was just kind of going through the motions.
It was all meaningless. It was for show, that pomp and circumstance.
There was nothing sincere about the worship that was being done here. It was not sincerely a worship in God.
And if you have only the appearance, but you don't put it into work in your life, you're the same as that fig tree, fruitless and dead.
You can look the part, you can sound the part, and there are a lot of people who do.
But inside, where it matters most, where it truly counts, you need to ask yourself, are you dead or are you born again?
You need to examine your faith. We're making some headway now because we're already on Tuesday.
When the religious leaders question Jesus' authority.
See, we're still on Matthew chapter 21 and we're in verses 23 through 27. So Matthew 21 verses 23 through 27, the Bible says,
Jesus entered the temple courts and while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him.
By what authority are you doing these things, they asked? And who gave you this authority?
Jesus replied, I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I'm doing these things.
John's baptism, where did it come from? Was it from heaven or of human origin?
They discussed it among themselves and said, if we say from heaven, he will ask them, why didn't you believe him?
But if we say of human origin, we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.
So they answered, Jesus, we don't know.
Then he said, neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
See, the Pharisees, they were feeling threatened and they didn't recognize Jesus as Lord.
It's one of those times when you're blinded by the, you can't see the forest for the trees.
It's one of those types of situations. So they demanded to know where he got his authority from.
They're trying to put him joining on the spot. They saw two possible outcomes.
One, if Jesus said that it came from God, then they could accuse him of blasphemy.
Or two, if Jesus said it was of his own authority, then the people would see that the Pharisees were a greater authority.
However, Jesus, he saw right through this facade. He knew it was garbage.
So he in turn asked a question that instead revealed their true motives. He put them on the spot.
They didn't really care about his answer and that was reflected in this question.
Instead, they wanted to trap him and the truth they were looking for was only that truth that would support their own views.
Sounds an awful lot like a big part of society today, doesn't it? We see that a lot.
It's like, what's your truth? Jesus is my truth.
And on this particular day, God had two things at play.
Jesus taught in the temple and God was setting that final stage for his sacrifice by his engagement with the religious leaders.
Which brings us to Wednesday, HOP DAY, the day Judas betrays Jesus and forever tarnishes his name.
Of all the names in the world, there are only a couple that you won't really come across.
Judas is right there at the top of that list.
We'll hear from the Bible on this. We're going to go to Matthew chapter 26.
We're going to look at verses 1 through 5.
Matthew 26 verses 1 through 5, the Bible says, When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples,
As you know, the Passover is two days away, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.
Then the chief priest and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Asaphus.
And they skeined to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him, but not during the festival, they said, or there may be a riot among the people.
And then this is continued in Matthew 26 verses 14 through 16.
Then one of the twelve, the one called Judas Descro, went to the chief priest and asked,
What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you? So they counted out for him 30 pieces of silver.
From then on, Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.
So the Romans had taken over, appointing government and religious figures at this point.
And Asaphus was the longest reigning priest there at the time.
And the religious leaders were plotting the best way to go about killing Jesus.
And so Asaphus previously had even been the first to say that Jesus' death could save the people.
You can see that in John 11 verses 49 through 50.
It was kind of an unwitting thing when he said it.
He wasn't looking at this point, but nonetheless, he was still there.
So he's been a part of that process for a long time.
And these religious leaders, they had to be careful so that they wouldn't be causing a riot.
That's the last thing they wanted to start, especially during the Passover.
This is a whole celebration, right?
So Jesus is well aware, and even though they don't see it yet, he's telling his disciples as well.
He's already told them that the Son of Man is going to be handed over.
Judas, like many, believed that Jesus was supposed to start a type of political rebellion.
He was one of the masses that were looking at him to overthrow Rome and kick them out.
And he was quickly realizing that this wasn't the case.
Jesus instead, he was starting a spiritual rebellion.
Knowing that the religious leaders were already looking for a way to deal with Jesus,
Judas seized the opportunity for himself.
And he took payment to turn on Jesus.
He took blood money, signed, sealed, and very, very soon to be delivered.
So, Maundy Thursday, or some call it Holy Thursday.
It's like, it's a holy day this, holy day that.
You know what?
At a certain point, it all just becomes the day, right?
Let's be honest here.
It's Thursday.
But in this case, Maundy Thursday.
So, Matthew 26, excuse me, not chapters, but verses 17 through 29,
and really the remainder of the chapter.
Tell us about Thursday, all right?
It's focused, the most focused part on this is the Last Supper, which of course is,
this is when Jesus and all of his disciples were together for a final dinner together.
Of course, the disciples, they weren't realizing that this was it.
This was the final supper.
All right.
And Jesus, he had already knew, he knew he had been betrayed by Judas.
This wasn't new for him.
He knew, even before Judas showed up.
He even said that he already knew.
Judas, of course, played innocent.
And after dinner, just like in older tradition, Jesus had communion with the disciples.
I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, how people that get together,
as opposed to now where we do it during service,
it's a little cracker, a chip, and you drink and we go through the whole thing and all that.
Instead, communion, it was held after dinner.
Everybody would get together, they'd actually have a feast where they would prepare themselves
in fellowship and all to get ready for communion.
And then afterwards, they would hold communion there.
All right.
And so this right here, this is what set that table.
It was, they had the supper and then Jesus held communion with the disciples.
All right.
This is where he held it up and just like previously blessed it and then served it.
Later that night, Judas would finish his final betrayal of Jesus.
And Jesus, of course, was arrested.
So God, he's offered his sacrifice.
Here it is.
Which brings us to Good Friday.
Now, the name Good Friday, it really comes across a bit as an oxymoron at first glance.
Matthew chapter 27, verses 1 through 61 are dedicated to this.
I'm not reading through all of it just for time's sake today, but please do read through it.
It's really good.
It is really important.
Okay.
Jesus is placed before Pilate for a trial.
And I use that term loosely here because of the relationship between Pilate and the religious leaders
who were all driven to sin by their own hatred and greed.
They were definitely strong on the dark side.
Judas, of course, at this point when he sees what's happening, he's realizing his error.
He's tried to return the blood money that he'd accepted.
And finally, he ultimately hangs himself.
He commits suicide.
Meanwhile, Jesus was being sent to be crucified.
Now, let's be clear.
This punishment was reserved for the worst of the worst.
Not petty crimes, not common crimes, but the absolute worst.
Just like the death penalty today is reserved for only certain elements.
He was stripped.
He was beaten.
He was spit upon and had a crown of thorns placed on his head and mocked.
So when I say he was beaten, when you read through the scripture here, it talks about it.
He was whipped.
The skin on his back, the flesh was torn.
Okay.
So I mean, he was truly beat.
He was already in a lot of pain and really torn up.
And then on top of that, this crown of thorns.
This crown, this wasn't just some little thing that was kind of braided together and then lightly placed on his head.
They wanted it to stay.
So it was pushed down into the flesh on his head.
All right.
So that's pretty painful.
I don't know if you've ever fallen into like a pirate canthobush or something like that.
But even that, when you get back out, it is painful.
And this is something, you know, big, big thorny thing being shoved down in there.
Ow.
All right.
And then on top of this, he was forced to carry his own cross.
The cross he knew he was about to be nailed to.
All right.
Talk about mental torture there.
So he's being forced to carry this to Golgotha, or as it's translated from the Greek, the skull.
It's also translated from Latin to a name that you are more likely familiar with, that being Calvary.
The mockery and the assaults continued along the way.
Once there, of course, he was nailed to the cross and posted to die with insults being continuously just hurled at him.
And to kind of give you an idea here, this is not this, you know, being a beauty that they put in like paintings and statues.
It's very grim.
It's very morose.
The nails, they were placed in very strategic places so that when they were nailed in, they were driven up against nerves.
So in addition to, you know, the pain of these spikes being driven into him, they also pressed against certain nerves so it felt like lightning was shooting up, you know, his arms.
And of course, you know, his feet were nailed as well and he was put into a position so that once it was stood up and all that he would have to try to support himself.
You know, and, you know, so he's nailed into this position where he's also, his arms are spread out and everything, so it makes it very hard to breathe.
He couldn't breathe well.
You couldn't really take deep breaths on top of trying to support yourself and everything.
Instead, you know, short breaths were all that most could manage.
So slowly your lungs would fill up with CO2 and fluid because you just couldn't really exhale.
You could, you know, get oxygen in but you couldn't really get it out.
So the CO2 and these fluids and all, they would continue to build up until essentially you would suffocate.
And to this day, this is still listed as one of the absolute worst ways to die.
And later, of course, that afternoon, Jesus died.
And a number of things happened after this.
You know, the veil, or in simple terms, the curtain in the temple was torn.
People who had died had, you know, they raised from their graves and they were seen in town.
There was an earthquake.
You know, God's sacrifice had been accepted.
Jesus' body was then laid to rest and sealed in a rich man's tomb.
We know it is Good Friday though.
It's Good Friday indeed because Jesus was paying the price,
that ultimate price for you, for me, for everyone willing to accept Him, our salvation because of Him.
So now Silent Saturday sets in.
And as you'd expect, it's a day of mourning.
Matthew chapter 27 verses 62 through 66, the Bible says,
The next day, the one after preparation day, the chief priest 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.
It was a very sad day for everyone.
They didn't know what was about to happen.
As far as they were concerned, it was all over.
You and I, we have that view, of course, we're well after this, so we already know what's going to happen.
For us, this is something that happened in the past.
But for them, things hadn't happened yet.
And the religious leaders took the claims of the resurrection much more seriously than anyone else as well.
So even the chance that his body could be stolen was a chance that they could not risk.
So even after death, they were still afraid of Jesus.
In just a few years, one person, one person, the Son of God, had done so much and admit so much that even in death, these men were terrified of him.
Jesus is in the tomb.
This is a day when we should all reflect not only on his sacrifice, but where we'd be without it.
Which brings us to Easter Sunday, also known as Resurrection Sunday.
Matthew chapter 28 is all about his resurrection.
Hallelujah, he is risen, the tomb is empty.
Matthew 28 verses 1 through 7, the Bible says,
After the Sabbath, at dawn, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.
His appearance was like lightning, his clothes were white as snow.
The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.
He is not here. He has risen, just as he said.
Come and see the place where he lay, then go quickly and tell his disciples,
He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.
There you will see him. Now I have told you.
Jesus has risen and the tomb is empty. It is still empty today.
Now I would like to point out that the stone covering the tomb, it was not moved so Jesus could get out.
Rather, it was moved so that others could enter and see that he was not there.
That when they were out and they were seeing him, that they were truly seeing the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, not some doppelganger or look-alike.
The resurrection of Jesus is the key to our Christian faith.
And for a handful of reasons.
First, because his return fulfills his promise of returning from the dead.
So we know he will accomplish everything he has promised.
Second, his resurrection shows us that the Living Christ is the ruler of God's Kingdom.
Not an imposter, not some body double.
Third, it shows that there is life after death and that we have a future waiting for us as he has promised.
Next, the power that brought Jesus back to life is also there to resurrect our spiritually dead selves.
And finally, it is the foundation for the Church to witness God to the world.
Our task of fulfilling the Great Commission.
Now summed up by the time that we have today, all of this is the foundation of Holy Week.
There are a few other things that are in here, there are a few things that I can go into in more detail, but for time's sake I'm just not going to.
From the back of a donkey to the cross, into battle with death and then back for all of us. Jesus is the way.
John 14 verse 6, the Bible says, Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
He's paid the toll and he's waiting for us to go with him.
Are you willing to accept what Jesus has done for you?
Thank you for tuning in to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
If you'd like to know more about our ministry, you can find us on Facebook at Be The Light Sanctuary or on our website at BeTheLightSanctuary.org.
Thank you again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.