What would you do if this were your last week of life?

What would you do if you knew this was your last week of life?

It’s the Monday after Palm Sunday. If you’re a religious person or at least a church-attender, you realize that yesterday, the Christian faith celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem about 2000 years ago.

Jesus was coming to Jerusalem to die on Friday. His disciples thought they were going to celebrate the Passover. They didn’t realize that Jesus was the Passover Lamb. Good Friday would not feel good at all.

This would be a traumatic week by anybody’s standards. Even Jesus, who was, after all, fully human as well as fully God. (If you’re not sure about the God part, just check back on what Jesus was doing on Sunday.)

What did Jesus do during his last week as a human being?

• Cried over the city, knowing that people would reject salvation from sins that He offered
• Went to the temple and threw out the merchants who were profiting from worship
• Taught in the temple and fielded questions from His enemies, intended to entrap Him into a punishable offense
• Kept teaching, although he was followed by spies from the religious authorities
• Pointed out a poor widow who gave all her savings to God and praised her
• Gives His disciples His final teachings, filled with love and protection
• Instructed His disciples how to prepare for the Last Supper
• Gave communion to His disciples and washed their feet
• Watched Judas Iscariot slip out from dinner to go meet the Pharisees and get paid for His betrayal
• Predicted Peter’s betrayal of Him
• Took His disciples to the Garden of Gethsemene for moral support, but they fell asleep
• Prayed and anguished before God, even to the point of blood oozing from his pores
• Watched Judas betray Him with a kiss
• Healed Malchus, whose ear is cut off by Peter in the garden
• Watches all his disciples run away from the soldiers
• Experienced an illegal trial before Annas, son-in-law to the High Priest
• Stood trial before Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest, and the Sanhedrin for another illegal trial
• Watched His good friend Peter deny Him vehemently, with curses, while he warms himself outside the courtroom
• Stood trail before Pilate, the royal governor, who believed Him innocent but had Him sentenced to death; Pilate instead released Barabbas, a robber and an insurrectionist
• Was beaten in the face, head, and body; His beard is pulled out by the roots
• Was whipped with a cat-of-nine tails, within an inch of His life; His back shredding into ribbons of flesh, muscle, and bone
• Endured the impact of a crown of thorns, probably 6-inches long each, being pushed into his scalp; soldiers placed a purple robe on Him; everyone bowed down in mockery, jeering at His claim to be a King
• Carried His instrument of execution and disgrace, a wooden cross, possibly 3 miles uphill, through a jeering crowd; a stranger named Joseph helped him carry it when He fell beneath its weight
• Was stripped naked and watched the soldiers cast lots to win His coat
• Endured iron spikes being driven through his wrists and his ankles; then the cross was lifted into the air and dropped into a hole in the ground
• Spent His last few hours in excruciating pain, gasping for air while He slowly suffocated
• Insured protection for His mother Mary, by giving her into John’s care
• Forgave and encouraged the thief hanging next to him

This is not what I would do this week, if I knew I would die on Friday. In fact, I would never do this.

How amazing that He did!

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