![]() ![]() Lawyers discuss the legality of the various trials. Preachers tell the story over and over, trying to capture its essence. If you’re keeping score, there were seven trials or hearings in less than 24 hours. From there they made their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed, was betrayed, and arrested. Jesus and the apostles gathered in an upper room for the Passover meal, which we know as The Last Supper. It’s a story that takes place in less than a day - about 22 hours ending shortly before the beginning of Shabbat, the Sabbath. Twenty-one centuries later, we still struggle to tell the story so effectively that our questions are all answered and our emotions so involved that the story just won’t let go. Countless others, beginning with all four gospel writers, have tried to make the passion of Christ so real that we really do feel like we were “there when they crucified my Lord.” More recently, no less a media personality than Bill O’Reilly has included in a series of books one titled Killing Jesus. In 1957, a journalist and author named Jim Bishop created a stir in the religious world with his best-selling The Day Christ Died. For me, it was a communion like no other, and every Sunday I still hear those screams and hammer blows all over again. I thought it had made real the raw emotions we usually gloss over with a bit of bread and a sip of wine. Some thought that communion devotional 30 years ago had profaned something sacred. Muted, but still heard in the background, was the noise of hammer blows and the anguished cries of unbearable pain. ![]() And, from different parts of the room, cries of "Crucify him! Crucify him!" were heard. Suddenly, the silence was broken by WHAM! It was the sound of a heavy hammer blow followed by cries of pain. Our part was to sit quietly, with heads bowed and eyes closed, no matter what we might hear or sense. until a college student rose to announce that he and some friends had been asked to help create a mood for communion, the Lord’s Supper. It was a quite ordinary church service until. On the first day of that week - Sunday, what we call Easter Sunday or Resurrection Sunday - would come the joyous news that He is not here He is risen He is risen indeed! Like him, and because of him, we live and die to live again. This week would be endured because of the victory to be celebrated on a single day of the week to follow. In this week, he would be the guest of his Bethany friends, be anointed by Mary and another Mary, make his heroic entry into Jerusalem, teach from the Mount of Olives, share the Last Supper with his apostles, experience betrayal, denial, endure one mock trial after another, then finish his mission on earth on a cross. If I could turn the calendar back about 21 centuries and relive a week from the life of Jesus, I think this - the most awful and the most wonderful week of his young life - is the one I would choose. ![]()
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