CityView Magazine

14 | April 2018 O F A I T H O n the first Sunday of this month, the Christian church celebrated its most important holy day, known as Easter or Resurrection Sunday. Each year, Christians all over the world dedicate a single Sunday to put extraordinary emphasis on the significance of the resurrection of Christ. As our world continues down a glide path of progressive secularism, fewer people are celebrating this special Sunday and even fewer understand why it is such a big deal! e man, Jesus of Nazareth, claimed to be the Son of God. He made it clear on more than one occasion that His Father was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He stated that he was sent by God to this earth. He said he had a preexistence that dated back to before Abraham (John 8:58). Simply put, these are outlandish claims if they are not true. If someone came into your church with these type of claims, you'd conclude they had lost their marbles. In order to validate these claims of divine origin, Jesus performed many great and supernatural miracles. He called Lazarus back from the dead. He healed the blind and made the lame to walk. He fed thousands on multiple occasions. He walked on water! e gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are replete with miraculous stories. Aer three years of teaching and performing public miracles, many came to believe that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah foretold by the Old Testament Scripture and sent by God. ese Jews were convinced that Jesus was who he claimed to be. ey called him Lord and Master, and He said they were right to call him such, for so he was (John 13:13). On the Sunday before his death, nearly all of Jerusalem called Jesus their King with words of praise and adoration (Matthew 21; John 12:13). is sudden rise of incredible popularity caused great fear among the Jewish political and religious leaders. If Jesus of Nazareth became the King of Israel, what would happen to their positions of power, influence and wealth? All would be lost. ey saw that Jesus had disciples and these disciples no doubt would occupy positions of leadership in this new kingdom. Something had to be done to stop Jesus. Meeting behind closed doors and in the late hours of the night, the Pharisees and Sadducees worked together to have Jesus crucified. False charges were trumped up and a man, Judas Iscariot – one of Jesus' disciples – was paid off to betray Jesus. Because of the Roman law prohibiting the Jews from carrying out capital punishment, the Roman governor had to be convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was a threat to Rome. Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor at the time, and the narrative in the gospel of John shows that he was fully convinced that Jesus had done nothing worthy of death. He said, "I find no guilt in him" (John 18:37). Pilate asked Jesus if he was the King of the Jews and Jesus didn't deny this truth for so He is! Pilate expressed his extreme frustration with the entire situation throughout the narrative and attempts multiple times to free Jesus. It is obvious to the reader of John that Pilate does not want to put an innocent man to death. e dialog between Jesus and Pilate is interesting and worthy of your attention. Read all of John 18 slowly and carefully and you will see that Jesus will not back down from his divine origin and his position as the promised Son of David, the King of the Jews. Yet He knows He must die; the amazing truth was that the King must die for His people. e idea that the King, the promised Messiah, must die was inconceivable to Peter and the disciples. Peter was willing to fight to the death to keep His Lord from dying. Yet that was not God's plan. Jesus was born to die. He had to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). e curse of sin, any and all forms of disobedience to God and his law, had separated the Creator God from His creation Jesus was born to die BY PASTOR SEAN HARRIS

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