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    Down The Last Road
    Down The Last Road
    Down The Last Road
    Ebook153 pages1 hour

    Down The Last Road

    By Richard P. Zimmerman

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    Four voices narrate the last 24 hours of the life of Jesus. Down The Last Road is the complete narrative of that last day, from just before the last supper up to the moment when the remaining friends of Jesus walked away from his tomb the following evening. This blended translation presents the reports of all four Gospels in

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNovo Civitas Books and Resources
    Release dateFeb 17, 2021
    ISBN9780578859064
    Down The Last Road
    Author

    Richard P. Zimmerman

    Richard P. Zimmerman is Stated Clerk of ECO's Presbytery of the Northwest. Following 18 years of pastoral service to congregations in Alaska and Oregon, he began leading churches through transition. His degrees include a BA from the University of Washington, an MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary, a ThM from Regent College, and a DMin from Columbia Theological Seminary. He writes from 25 years of pastoral experience and his journey of leading two churches through pastoral transitions.

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      Book preview

      Down The Last Road - Richard P. Zimmerman

      Down The Last Road

      Down The Last Road

      The Last Day Of The Earthly Life Of Jesus

      Richard P. Zimmerman

      

      Novo_CivitasLLc_title_page_logo.jpg

      Novo Civitas Books And Resources • Seattle, Washington

      Down The Last Road

      The Last Day Of The Earthly Life Of Jesus

      Novo CivitasLLC Books and Resources

      Novocivitas.com

      

      Novo_Civitas_B_and_W_compact.jpg

      Copyright © 2021 by Richard P. Zimmerman

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author, with the exception of brief excerpts for the purpose of review.

      God made One who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become God’s righteousness in him.

      2 Corinthians 5:21

      Contents

      Line

      1 Day Of Sorrows

      2 Four Writers, One Story

      3 The Last Day Of The Earthly Life Of Jesus

      4 Study Notes

      5 Using This Resource

      6 About This Translation

      In Gratitude

      References

      1

      Day Of Sorrows

      O

      ne day of sorrow stands out from all others. We sing about that day nearly every Sunday when we gather for worship. We only need one word to signify that entire day of agony. It is the symbol of Christianity, and it is one word that sums up the day that stands out from all others: cross. The cross represents the most physical element of the suffering of Jesus. But it also stands for the greater pain of the entire day. Blow by blow, through betrayal, abandonment and humiliation, Jesus endured to the end of that day of sorrow.

      It is a day that stands out from all others, but it is not a day that stands above all others. Easter is a day above the day of the cross. Easter is that decisive hinge on which everything else depends. Easter is that instant when life burst forth out of the cavern of death. But Easter was made possible by the grueling 24 hours of Jesus’s dying day. The day of the cross is the day when Jesus willingly received the worst pain and suffering the world could offer and absorbed it all into the infinite pool of his endless grace.

      In a communion meditation, Lloyd Ogilvie once said, It is astonishing, isn’t it, that all the enemies in life and death have been defeated through Jesus Christ’s life and death. Fear of any eventuality, even our own death, can not destroy us. He has done all things to set us free to live the abundant life.¹

      It is, in fact, so astonishing as to be nearly beyond the grasp of our ordinary experience. Even though my mind might have accepted the truth of it, even though my heart may have felt the power of it, even if I have committed my will to following the way of Jesus, I still might have difficulty experiencing that freedom on a daily basis. Many people of sincere faith feel the liberation offered by Jesus only now and then. Or maybe they never feel it completely in a way that lasts through every circumstance. While some part of our spirits has received the gift of eternal life, most of us still live in fear of death and under the weight of doubt. We are separated from our liberated selves by the daily struggle to hang on to what we know is true. In short we don’t feel liberated, and we don’t feel the abundant life.

      Some consolation for our lagging feelings comes in the Gospel reports. All of the disciples and friends of Jesus responded to the event of the arrest of Jesus by running away, skulking in darkness, weeping, and hiding. Apparently the astonishing truth of what Jesus was doing did not make them feel great courage or transcendent peace in those terrifying moments when everything seemed to be falling apart. Even though they had been with Jesus for years, even though they heard his teaching and watched him heal the sick, even though they ate the bread he offered and drank the cup he gave to them, the disciples still lost their courage when Jesus was arrested and taken off for his trial. All this happened within hours after the last supper–the event which most Christians regard as a supreme encouragement. How could it be that the calories their bodies used to flee in terror were supplied by the bread and wine of communion? As it was for those first followers, so it has been for many if not all of us who followed later: people who have faith in Jesus struggle with lagging feelings.

      And this lag points to one of the central purposes of the Christian life: spiritual growth. On a daily basis we don’t automatically feel calm and brave even after we have received his grace. But intentional spiritual growth is a process of taking actions to help our thoughts and feelings catch up with our faith. Discipleship means taking steps to inform your mind and heart of what your faith says is true.

      Faith is different from feelings. And we should not be surprised when our feelings lag behind our faith. Do you long for the truth of your faith to have a greater impact on your daily experience? This book is designed to bring the experience of the Gospel narratives of the last day of the life of Jesus into focused awareness so that daily life is transformed into a steady experience of liberation.

      Of course, the last day of the earthly life of Jesus is filled with hopelessness, death, and despair. So why would an intense focus on those last 24 hours strengthen anyone’s faith?

      The death of Jesus only matters to our faith because of the resurrection. As Luke Timothy Johnson has written,

      If Jesus is simply dead, there are any number of ways in which we can relate ourselves to his life and his accomplishments. And we might even, if some obscure bit of data should turn up, hope to learn more about him. But we cannot reasonably expect to learn more from him.

      If he is alive, however, everything changes. It is no longer a matter of our questioning a historical record, but a matter of our being put in question by one who has broken every rule of ordinary human existence. If Jesus lives, then it must be as life-giver. Jesus is not simply a figure of the past in that case, but a person in the present; not merely a memory that we can analyze and manipulate, but an agent who can confront and instruct us. What we learn about him must therefore include what we continue to learn from him.

      To be a Christian means to assert that Jesus is alive, is indeed life-giving Spirit (I Cor. 15:45).²

      Daily events tend to obscure that reality. We get caught up in whatever is happening in our lives or in the world around us and we lose sight of the reality of this core truth of our faith. That is why it is essential to build in daily, weekly, and annual practices that put us back into communion with Jesus.

      And yet to follow along the path of these 24 hours in the life of Jesus is heartbreaking and jarring. To truly reflect on how lonely the path was that Jesus walked on Good Friday is almost unbearable. The evening before, at the meal we call the last supper, he offered himself to his friends at the table in the upper room. This was a tremendously intimate act. Hours later in the garden, when the soldiers had him surrounded, Jesus secured the release of his disciples by asking the soldiers to let them go. He thus saved his friends from joining him in death. The guards consented to his request and did not arrest them. This is what that last day in the life of Jesus was all about. His capture secured our release. His trial and punishment removed the accusations from our record. No one else could do this for us. He had to walk the road of suffering alone.

      But in every moment we have the chance to reverse that loneliness by walking with him. This is most pointedly true on Good Friday when we walk the road to the cross in our minds and remember what he suffered so that we might live in freedom and abundance forever.

      A Day In Bible Time

      And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.

      -Genesis 1:5 b.

      We generally think of the beginning of a day as midnight. Sometimes we consider dawn the start of a day. Genesis says that God created light out of darkness. Darkness precedes light, so a day begins in the evening at sunset and proceeds through the next 24 hours, concluding at the following twilight. So the last day of the life of Jesus, from the point of view of the Bible’s system of counting days, begins right before the last supper and ends as the friends of Jesus lay his body in the tomb.

      When Jesus woke up on Thursday morning, the day before his crucifixion, it is probable that

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