Day 28: Jesus’s Cross is Transformative

When the hour came, he reclined at the table, and the apostles with him. Then he said to them, “I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But look, the hand of the one betraying me is at the table with me. For the Son of Man will go away as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”

So they began to argue among themselves which of them it could be who was going to do it.

Then a dispute also arose among them about who should be considered the greatest. LUKE 22:14–24, EMPHASIS MINE

DESPITE THE SERENITY DEPICTED in Renaissance paintings, that Last Supper held in an “upper room” (those two words in the New Testament come from the single Greek word kataluma, which was typically a guest room people rented out—similar to a modern-day Airbnb), where Jesus shared a Passover meal with His handpicked posse of disciples, was anything but peaceful. I can totally imagine breadsticks flying as that motley crew started fussing! However, I can’t begin to imagine how disheartened Jesus was when what was supposed to be a holy and grateful observance of how God had spared the Jewish people from death during the Egyptian captivity digressed into a raucous sort of reality television show.

Instead of the supper being marked by brotherly cohesion, it was marked by prideful division—by an ugly argument over who’d have top billing in Glory. These twelve guys—who’d spent three years with Jesus—were still so consumed by their own agendas that they completely missed that the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah’s sacrificial death were about to be fulfilled. It would’ve made sense if Jesus had chosen to fry them all into a grease spot of oblivion and chucked the whole “redemption of humanity” plan! Instead, John tells us that He stooped down, picked up a wet towel, and began to wash their nasty feet (John 13:1–17). After this, He walked to the Mount of Olives where Judas’s betrayal—which He knows is a precursor to His crucifixion—was going to take place.

Fifty days later, the disciples had a Pentecost dinner in another upper room, only this time the meal didn’t morph into a melee:

When they arrived, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying: Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. They all were continually united in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. (Acts 1:13–14, emphasis mine)

Less than two months had passed since their disastrous Passover dinner and the posture of these eleven men has been completely transformed from divided and prideful to devoted and prayerful. They’re no longer simply consumers of the Gospel, but have matured into carriers of the Gospel. We know this because the rest of the story tells us that, for example, all but John would ultimately give their lives for the sake of Christ, and as for Peter, legend has it that he humbly asked to be crucified upside down rather than right side up because he knew he wasn’t worthy to adopt the posture of Jesus in death. What happened in seven weeks that left such a life-changing mark on these men?

The cross and the resurrection happened.

Peter experienced radical restoration less than two weeks after he threw Jesus under the bus. Thomas was invited to touch the wounds in Jesus’s wrists where Roman soldiers had driven metal stakes on which the weight of His body would hang. All of them got to see Jesus in the flesh, risen, after He had died. They finally understood in part what their Savior had been prophesying all along: I love you so much, I’d rather die (and then conquer death) than live without you.

The difference between performance and devotion is rarely defined by outward behavior. When I was shackled with shame in my twenties and thirties, I still read my Bible and prayed and tried not to say bad words in traffic. Outwardly, a Pharisee and a devotee can look similar. But when your heart becomes more cognizant of what took place on (and after!) that old, rugged cross, everything changes.

• AUTHOR BARBARA JOHNSON wrote: “We’re Easter people living in a Good Friday world.”23 How would you restate that in your own words?
• IT’S BEEN SAID that Protestants “take Jesus off the cross too quickly” and don’t spend enough time pondering what He went through on our behalf. Do you agree or disagree? How might considering the crucifixion help you become a “carrier” of the Gospel more so than a “consumer”?