Day 90 | We Have No King

January 1, 2015 - WEEK THIRTEEN

Antonio Ciseri, Ecce Homo (Behold the Man), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

DAILY READING

Matt 27:15-26
Mark 15:6-16
Luke 23:13-25
John 18:39-40, 19:1-16;
For Younger Disciples

CONSIDER AS YOU READ

• How do you feel when one less worthy, less qualified, or less righteous is chosen instead of you?
• How are we, like Barabbas, freed by Christ’s sacrifice?

SUPPLEMENTAL READING

The binding of Jesus reminds us of the binding of Isaac in the Akedah—from the Hebrew word ‘aqad, “to bind,” that only appears in the Bible in Genesis 22:9, but in postbiblical Hebrew the word means “to bind the legs of an animal for sacrifice” (Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18–50, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995, 110–11). In the case of animals, the binding was to keep them from struggling at the moment of slaughter. In the case of Abraham and Isaac, commentators have noted that the binding of the youthful Isaac by his elderly father serves as a symbol of the willingness of Isaac to submit himself to the will of his father (Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 16–50, Dallas: Word Books, 109).
Then began the series of trials in which Jesus, as Isaiah prophesied, would meekly stand before His judges—bound like a lamb to the slaughter—and open not His mouth. First He appeared before Annas, then the high priest Caiaphas, and later before Pilate. Initially Jesus did solemnly answer His accusers in declaring His Messiahship. In the second part of the trial before Pilate (see Mark 15:3–5) and especially before Herod Antipas, as prophesied by Isaiah, Jesus literally “opened he not his mouth” (Acts 8:32). The story is well known. As a result of the dynamic interchange between the Jewish and Roman leaders and the people, Jesus was eventually condemned to die….
John notes that the Jews, as they led Jesus before Pilate, did not enter into the judgment hall “lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover” (John 18:28)…. [W]hile the Jews are acutely aware of keeping the impurity of the Passover, they are ignorantly participating in the actual killing of Jesus the Messiah—the true Passover Lamb (David Rolph Seeley and Jo Ann H. Seeley, “Behold the Lamb of God,” in Richard Holzapfel, Frank F. Judd, and Thomas A. Wayment, “Behold the Lamb of God”: an Easter celebration, Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, BYU, 2008).

ADDITIONAL MEDIA

Finding Faith in
Christ—Trial and
Crucifixion

FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES

To this End
Was I Born—
Crucify Him

QUESTIONS FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES

• Have you ever felt that all your friends had turned against you?
• Do you think Jesus knows how you feel when you are rejected by others?