Lent Day 31–The Victory March

Prepare the Way has been our theme during this season of Lent (Isaiah 40:3-5) as we’ve pondered reasons for a time of desert preparation, discussed ways of being consecrated—set apart—as God’s redeemed people. The Way of Holiness has been paved for us by Christ Himself whose glory was about to be revealed in the final days of His life.

So many Christians have the kind of comfort gospel that Niebuhr describes as “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross” (The Kingdom of God in America).

Have we created a savior in our own image—one whose glory looks remarkably like man’s? Or do we see the one the Bible depicts: a suffering servant—the Christ?

It is in the footsteps of Jesus Christ our Savior—resolutely to the Cross—in which the glory of the Lord is revealed. This is the Way of Holiness: the Victory March of Christ.

He made up His mind (Luke 9:51):

“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem…”

He knew what would happen (Matthew 20:17-19):

“Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, ‘We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!’”

He entered Jerusalem to praises (Luke 19:38):

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

But died rejected. In the last set of devotionals we will see Jesus—the slain Lamb of God—through His Last Words upon the Cross: His final hour.

Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” (John 12:23-28)