The disciples and followers of Jesus were filled with joy: “Hosanna in the highest!” they shouted as they entered Jerusalem for the Passover.^[1]

They were giddy to see Jesus enter Jerusalem in such triumph, many thinking that this was it, the victory they’d hoped for so long. Their joy was real, and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was indeed triumphal. But it wasn’t what it seemed. Did they know what they were about to witness? Did they know what was to take place in the days ahead?

It’s always good to come to church, especially a church we love and find comfort in; we should give thanks for such a place of solace in this weary and wicked world. But we mustn’t think that’s all there is, that all we come here for is comfort and victory. We mustn’t forget what this place is actually about, that there’s an altar in the middle of it, a place of sacrifice, death, and reckoning. We mustn’t forget that. We mustn’t forget what we’re here for, and that is to watch a man die. We are here to see a man whom we have come to love and trust betrayed and beaten, spit upon and mocked. We are here to see a man we love and trust hang on a cross for three hours on a lonely hill in a spiteful and negligent world. We have come to watch Jesus die.

And so, please—at least this week—don’t enter this place for solace only, merely for whatever personal good it does for you, out of mere custom or culture (you would do better to stay away if that’s the case). Don’t come here to find strength or even at first to give thanks—in that sometimes ungrateful way we can thank God. Rather, this week come only to see your part in the murder of God’s Son. We need to see how bloody our hands are—still and to this day.

In watching our lonely Lord this week, in watching his death, we are more than spectators. Thomas spoke up (maybe not quite understanding his own words) and said to the others, “Let us also go to die with him.”^[2] In following the Lord this week, together in this consecrated place, we draw near the death of the Lord Jesus. Our hearts—if they’ve not become too hardened—are rightly torn to hear again of his betrayal and crucifixion; but we not only hear about it, we not only see it and imagine it; rather, we can by faith enter into it—again if our hearts are still there. In our worship together this week, we can (I will call it mystically) enter into the passion of Jesus Christ. Christ became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.^[3] He became sin, so we must become Christ. As we go through the week, as we come to the moment when the Lord is placed on the cross and nailed to it, we will hopefully be more than sentimental or emotional about it. “O good Jesus, hear us; within Thy wounds hide us; suffer us not to be separated from Thee”—that’s a good prayer, may it mean something this week.^[4] We shouldn’t be afraid of it, that in Jesus on the cross, we shall see our sins being suffered, our egos being justly humbled, our false lives dying.

Again, if we still have hearts, we will hopefully see and know that we are dying with the Lord of glory, that we are suffering with him in obedience to God’s will—not with any eye for merit but simply because we love him. What mother doesn’t want to take the sufferings of her child on to herself—what father? Like Mary, it’s a special grace to see Jesus this week as she did, as a son. Clearly, we must die with Christ to rise with him (Paul and Jesus were clear about that); we must suffer with him.^[5] We must be here to see the Lord suffer and die. But shouldn’t we want to? Shouldn’t your desire be for the cross? Shouldn’t your love for Jesus—if you have any—bring you here to this place of suffering and death—like a mother to the bedside of her sick child? Do not come here on Easter Sunday, do not say that you love, if this week means nothing, if Holy Thursday and Good Friday mean nothing to you—if you treat them as ordinary days. You must drink from the cup of suffering in order to have a place in the banquet of heaven. Shallow love is for the shallow. True love weeps at the foot of the cross—in the darkness, surrounded by endless wicked laughter and people who do not understand what you are doing.

This is the time to pay attention to the Lord. This is the week to change your schedule and come to the church for worship and prayer. Don’t let faith die simply because you had other things to do. Love doesn’t have other things to do. This is the week to sit—here at this Golgotha, vigilant in hope that what you are seeing belongs to you. This is the week to hope for your own death—not a death isolated and alone, but a death shared, shared with a lonely man from Nazareth who died because of love. Jesus asked the sons of Zebedee, “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?”  “We can,” they answered.  “Very well,” said Jesus, “you shall…”^[6] Please stop saying you love him if that love hasn’t changed you. Talk is cheap. Talk is nothing.

Come, be Christians. Worship the Lord this week. Live as if this is the last week of your life. Die on Friday with Jesus so that you may walk with him in the garden come Sunday. Amen.

[1] Matthew 21:9

[2] John 11:16

[3] 2 Corinthians 5:21

[4] Anima Christi

[5] Romans 6:8

[6] Matthew 20:22-23 (The Jerusalem Bible)

© 2022 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield