Lent Midweek III
Mark 14:26-50
March 26, 2025
What is the most uncomfortable teaching in Scripture, the most confusing, the most confounding? Is it Creation? Is it the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Is it the animal sacrifices and necessity of the shedding of blood for atonement? Perhaps it’s the doctrine of the Trinity which muddles the mind and twists the tongue? Or maybe the two natures of Christ? How about the Lord’s Supper where body and blood are really, truly, actually present in the bread and wine? How about baptism where splashing a bit of water on a person brings salvation and the Holy Spirit?
Back in my 20’s while living in Nashville doing the whole “break into the music business” gig, some friends and I started a band. I was, at the time writing about a song every couple of weeks and then we’d look at the songs and we’d record some and at some point we intended on doing live performances – never happened because my guitarist got married and I ended up moving to Nebraska and going back to school, but one of our very first conversations was about the naming of the band.
We landed on the name, “Heaven’s Conspiracy.” It sounded cool, but I wasn’t sure if it was theologically sound. But we ended up keeping it and recording three albums under that name before we all went our separate ways.
Heaven’s Conspiracy. The story behind the story, the plot of eternity to save sinners from death and hell. It is so beyond belief that no human being could come up with it. It’s not rational; not reasonable. It’s a story of intrigue and fascination; it’s beyond imagination. And the most mind-boggling part of it all, God the Father willed and intended for His only Son to die. That’s right! The plan was for the Son of God to be put to death, despised, forsaken, and literally left for dead by the Lord of creation.
See, if you think that the crucifixion of Jesus was some sort of secondary plan, a heavenly last resort after many attempts at saving humanity, think again. Even going back to the Garden of Eden and God creating all things as He did was so that His only Son would die on the cross.
There are no mistakes, no mishaps, no change of plans, no readjusting the divine GPS regarding how it all plays out. Everything was done precisely as it needed to be done so that the Christ would be conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffer under Pontius Pilate, be crucified, die and be buried.
Now, before the fall, man was enslaved to life – he was enslaved to light and holiness and righteousness. In the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, man was ripped from the light and made a slave of the darkness so that death would reign and encompass all humanity born into it.
Some might ask, “Is God the creator of sin, therefore?” Absolutely NOT! Sin is Satan’s work, not the Lord’s, and it was not the Lord’s desire that His first children sin. Even so, God placed that ancient tree into the garden so that Adam would know how to worship God and abide in Him alone…by NOT eating of that tree.
But because Eve and Adam ate, they were ripped away from slavery to God’s goodness and planted into slavery to death. Even so, God’s plan of salvation for all who believe in Him was not to be stopped by some slick serpent. God cursed creation, He cursed the serpent, and He promised salvation to the human race.
Jesus is the center of God’s plan. Not you; not I. In spite of the sappy cliché that “God has a plan for each of our lives,” ehhhh, no. God has ONE plan for ALL our lives, that we be washed in the blood of Jesus, covered in His righteousness, made alive by His death.
God’s plan from the beginning was that the virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son and that He shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. Right from the moment God said, “Let there be light,” THAT was the plan. God who is with us as the Christ, fully human yet fully God, that He shall suffer and die, that He shall be the second Adam who actually defeats the serpent for His bride, so that the children of God might be holy, righteous, and serving Him by serving one another in eternal love.
Jesus’ death on the cross WAS the plan, and it played out just as intended from the beginning. Jesus, the God-man, served His father righteously and faithfully. He would not doubt His Father even when His Father’s intent was for Him to die and forsook Him as He bleed and die alone on the cross. Even as He waste away Jesus faithfully spoke the Psalms and prayed for all of us, that we would be forgiven for what we’ve done. You see? For our sins against creation are also sins against God Himself. Our sins led to the murder of God, but God laid upon Himself our iniquities, placing the blame and the punishment upon His only Son.
Jesus chose to become a slave to sin and death so that we who were slaves to sin and death might be set free and made slaves to righteousness and life eternal.
And Satan? What of him? He is as much a subject to the Lord’s eternal will and purposes as everything else. He is creature, and don’t let him tell you otherwise.
You have been set free because it was God’s intention all along to set you free. Only do not use your freedom to reignite or tantalize the flesh of slavery once more. Slaves have no place in the Master’s house but only the children of the Master inherit His riches.
In closing, consider the disciples on the night our Lord was betrayed. Peter stood for them all when he said that he would not betray Jesus, he would not fall away. And yet in the Garden what did Peter and the other disciples do? They fell asleep. They were supposed to keep watch, but they couldn’t even keep awake. Thus, everything that Jesus said came true. The guards came, He was arrested, and they scattered. Peter denied His Lord before the morning rooster crowed. They couldn’t save humanity – it had to be Jesus.
It all happened just as it was supposed to for our good and for our salvation. Peter would not have been the Apostle he turned out to be if he had not denied His Lord. James and John would not have been the pillars of the Jerusalem church if they had not scattered in fear. Paul the Apostle would not have been the preacher he was if he had not persecuted Jesus and the Christians. And we would not have these examples of faithful men who lost their lives confessing Christ if God had not been working it all out as it did.
The Lord is steering this boat; He is running this train. It is headed precisely where He intends. And by water and Word, Jesus is pulling people in as the ship makes its way to the shore. You are a passenger on this great ark, the holy Christian church, because God, by His living and active Word, has pulled you up from the deep. He has saved you, rescued you from sin and death, and He did it thanks to the life, death, and resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ. This was the plan all along, that the son of man should suffer many things and be crucified and on the 3rd day rise again, that the Shepherd should be struck by the hand of God. With such a cataclysmic plan, the great conspiracy of heaven, that God should die in our place, what can we say in response? “If God is for us, who can be against us!” Amen.
