LESSON: ROMANS 15:1-6

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

Not the least part of love or self-surrender is for me to be able to give away my self-conceit or arrogance. I can no doubt give my neighbor temporal good and bodily service with my painstaking toil. I can also serve him with instruction and intercession, for example, by visiting him and consoling him when he is sick or sad. I can feed him when he is hungry, free him from imprisonment, and such like. But the greatest of all the services I can render my neighbor is bearing his weakness.

We will always fall short of the mark here. We will never attain to the perfection of Christ in this regard. He is the pure, bright Sun in which there is no mist. Our light is just like a glimmering stalk of straw in comparison with this Sun. Christ is a glowing oven full of fire and perfect love. But He is still satisfied with our little candle, if we provide some sort of evidence of letting our love shine forth.

Take a look at the Gospel record and see how Christ dealt with His disciples. He bore with them when they were guilty of foolish conduct and even when they, at times, went astray. In their service, His wisdom yielded to their folly. He did not condemn them but bore their weakness with long-suffering patience. “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand,” He tells them on one occasion (John 13:7). Through such love He gives up His righteousness, judgement, might, wrath, punishment, and the rights he has over us and our sins. He could condemn us because of our folly. But He does no more than to say, “You are in the wrong; you do not know anything; do not, however, reject me, but trust me.”

And so I say that it is no small example of love to be able to bear with our neighbor when he is weak in faith and love.

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PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, fill our hearts at all times with such love for our neighbor that we understand his weaknesses and needs and continue to bear with him, for Your name’s sake. Amen.

LESSON: PSALM 19:7-14

They understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them, and they did not grasp what was said. Luke 18:34

What Jesus said to the disciples had no meaning for them at this time. “This saying was hid from them.” This amounts to saying, “Reason, flesh, and blood cannot understand or grasp that Scripture should declare how the Son of Man must be crucified.” Still less can it understand that such is His will, and that He does this gladly.

Reason does not believe that this is necessary for us; it wants to take care of itself before God with works. God must reveal this in our hearts by His Spirit, after proclaiming it outwardly into our ears by His Word.

Even those to whom the Spirit reveals it inwardly find it hard to believe this and have to struggle with this.

So great and wonderful a thing it is that the Son of man is crucified willingly and gladly to fulfill the Scriptures, that is, for our good. It is a mystery and remains a mystery.

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PRAYER: O Lord, we are always in need of the enlightenment of Your Holy Spirit through Your Word. We thank You that, through the Spirit, we can understand the treasures of Your Word and make them our own. Amen.

LESSON: HEBREWS 10:1-7

[Christ said,] “‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’ as it is written of me in the roll of the scroll.” Hebrews 10:7

Christ’s sufferings are understood correctly when we do not simply regard the sufferings as such but recognize and grasp His heart and will to suffer. For if one regards His sufferings in isolation without recognizing His heart and will therein, one will be shocked by Christ’s sufferings rather than rejoice in them. But if one sees that Christ’s heart and will are in these sufferings, it produces real comfort, confidence, and pleasure in Christ.

The psalmist praises this will of God and Christ in suffering when he says, “In the roll of the scroll it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:7-8). The epistle to the Hebrews also refers to this when it says, “By that will we have been sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10). It does not say through the suffering and blood of Christ, which is pure enough, but through the will of God and of Christ, that they were both of one will to sanctify us through Christ’s blood.

This will to suffer He also manifests in the Gospel (Matthew 16:21-23), where He proclaims beforehand that He is going up to Jerusalem to suffer Himself to be crucified. It is as though He were saying, “Look into my heart to see that I am doing this willingly, without compulsion, and gladly, so that you may not be shocked or dismayed thereby when you see it come to pass and begin to think that I am doing it unwillingly, that I must do it, that I am forsaken, and that the Jews are doing it by their authority.”

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PRAYER: Thanks be to You, loving Father, for sending us such a ready and willing Savior, whose love for us has been manifested in His readiness and willingness to suffer and die for us and in our stead. Mercy and love are all Your ways, and those of Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

LESSON: MATTHEW 16:21-23

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 1 Peter 2:21

Jesus spoke the words of Matthew 16:21-23 before He entered upon His suffering, as He was on His way to Jerusalem. His immediate purpose was to celebrate Easter at Jerusalem. In all probability, the disciples had not the slightest idea of His impending sufferings at this time. They thought that they would have a joyful time at the festival.

Christ mentions His sufferings on this journey so that the faith of His disciples might be strengthened later on when they recalled His words in which He had told them of His sufferings. He had submitted to these sufferings willingly and was not simply crucified through the power and cunning of the Jews.

Isaiah had long foretold that He would willingly and gladly offer Himself (Isaiah 53:7). The angel, on Easter morning, also reminded the women to remember the words He had spoken to them (Luke 24:6) that they might know and more firmly believe that He suffered all this willingly and for our good.

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PRAYER: Lord Jesus Christ, thanks and praise to You for Your willingness and readiness to suffer and die on our behalf and for our good, for Your mercy’s sake. Amen.

PALM SUNDAY

LESSON: MATTHEW 13:45-46

“If anyone keeps my word.” John 8:51

It is quite clear from the context in which these words stand what Jesus means here by “keeping” His Word. He does not mean “keeping” in the sense that “keep” has when one speaks about “keeping” the Law. One “keeps” the Law by means of works. When Christ speaks here of “keeping” His Word, He means “keeping” it in one’s heart by faith, not keeping it with the fist or with works.

This is the wrong idea that the Jews have when they rage in such a horrible fashion against Christ and say to Him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death’” (John 8:52). They do not know what “keep,” “dying,” and “living” mean in this context.

It is not without good reason that Jesus employs the word “keep” here, because keeping His Word involves a struggle and a battle, for sin bites, death exerts its presence, and hell threatens. Under such conditions we must “keep” Christ’s Word, cling to it firmly, and not let ourselves be parted from it.

Note how Christ replies to the Jews in praise of His doctrine. “You claim,” He says, “that my Word is from the devil and you want to suppress it even beneath hell. But I say that it has divine power within it and exalt it above all the heavens and all creatures.”

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AE 76:412

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, You have clearly shown us in our Gospel that Your teaching is the most precious thing we can ever learn in our earthly lives. Grant us Your grace to appreciate this fact at all times so that we keep Your Word, for Your truth’s sake. Amen.

LESSON: HEBREWS 1:1-13

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” John 8:58

Jesus gives the basis and reason why it is just His Word and not that of anyone else which makes men live. It is simply this: that He “was” even before Abraham. “Before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus is the one true God.

If the person who offered Himself for us were not God, it would help and avail nothing before God that He was born of a virgin or had suffered a thousand deaths. But the fact that the seed of Abraham, who gives Himself for us, is also the true God makes His sacrifice such a blessing for us and conquers sin and death for us.

Jesus is not speaking here of His human nature which could be seen and felt. From His human aspect, it could be seen that He was not yet fifty years old and, hence, could not have seen Abraham. But with the nature by which He infinitely antedated Abraham, He also antedated all other creatures and the whole world.

According to His spiritual essence, He was also man before Abraham; that is, in the word and knowledge of faith, He was in the saints who all knew and believed that Christ, God and man, would suffer for us. The writer of Hebrews says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). In the Revelation of John we read of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). Here Jesus is speaking of His divine nature.

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AE 76:414

PRAYER: Lord God, heavenly Father, fill our hearts with such faith and knowledge that we always fully appreciate the precious gift of Your only begotten Son, and all the blessings of salvation You have so richly bestowed on us in and through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

LESSON: GALATIANS 3:15-18

“Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” John 8:56

Christ here declares in opposition to the Jews that Abraham and the prophets still live and never died, but that in the midst of death they have life. But they lie and sleep in death. “Your father Abraham,” He says, “rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” The prophets also saw Him.

Where and when did they see Him? Not with bodily eyes, as the Jews understood Him to say, but with the vision of the faith which they had in their hearts. Abraham recognized Christ when He said to him, “By your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves” (Genesis 22:18). At that time, he saw and understood that Christ was to be born from his seed through a pure virgin and suffer for the whole world. He would not be cursed along with Adam’s children but remain blessed. He knew that his message would be proclaimed in all the world and bestow a blessing on the whole of mankind.

Christ’s “day” is the time of the Gospel, which is the light of this day which shines with Christ, the sun of righteousness, and lights up all the world.

This is a spiritual “day,” but it had a historical beginning in Christ’s time, which Abraham also “saw.”

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AE 76,413

PRAYER: Open the eyes of our faith and understanding by Your Holy Spirit, O Lord, that with Abraham of old we always rejoice to have seen Christ’s day, the day of salvation, and are really happy and joyful in our knowledge of Christ. Amen.

LESSON: 1 CORINTHIANS 15:51-56

I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. Psalm 118:17

How does it come to pass that one does not see death or taste it when Abraham and all the prophets died, who certainly had the Word of God, as the Jews also maintained? Here we must pay close attention to what Christ actually says and note that He makes a distinction between death in the ordinary common sense and not seeing death or tasting death.

We must all pass through death and die. But a Christian does not taste death or see death, that is, he does not feel death. He is not terrified in the face of death. He enters it quietly and softly, as though he is falling asleep and not dying at all. But the godless man must feel death and be terrified by it eternally.

To taste death means to experience the power and might or the bitterness of death and, indeed, eternal death and hell. God’s Word makes this distinction. The Christian knows this, and it helps him in the hour of death. He does not see heat. He sees nothing but life and Christ in the Word, and so he does not feel death. But the godless man does not have this Word; he has no life, but sheer death. So, he feels death, and eventually this is also the bitterness of eternal death.

With the believer it is all so very different. He knows the Word of Christ: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25,26).

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AE 76,412

PRAYER: Be with us, dear Lord Jesus, especially in the hour of our death, that, firmly relying on Your promises, we may not taste death but pass through death into life eternal, as You have assured us. Amen.