Memory Verse:
And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.
(John 19:35)
I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.
Isaiah 50:6
Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men.
Isaiah 52:14
He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth…For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked--but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days…For He shall bear their iniquities…He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah 53:3–12
Day 41: Morning
At The Trial
(Read John 18:28–19:16)
John’s gospel clearly shows the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders, who would not go into the Praetorium so that they would not defile themselves from Passover. Look how many times Pilate had to go in and out of the Roman headquarters: Pilate went out (18:29), in (18:33), out (38), in (19:1), out (19:4), in (19:9), out (19:12) and apparently in and out once more for the conversation of 19:21 to take place, just to appease the Jews.
The fact that the religious leaders had already met before sunrise (John 18:28 says it was early morning by the time they brought Jesus to Pilate), indicates they met illegally (according to Talmud law). Additionally, they lied by saying Jesus was an evil doer and gathered false witnesses to convict him.
The leaders turned Jesus over to the Romans because they wanted Him crucified. Jesus knew the type of death He would die, as it had been prophesied in the Psalms and indicated in John 3 that He would be lifted up like Moses’ serpent on the pole.
Buried in today’s reading in John 18 is a profound explanation of why Jesus came. “For this cause I have come.” What was that cause? To be sure, there were many reasons Jesus proclaimed in the gospels on why He came.
But when Jesus was on trial, He made the “good confession before Pontius Pilate,” quietly proclaiming why He came. “For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”
While the religious leaders said one thing and did another, Jesus brought truth before the people. Jesus was the Truth in His life and in His witness of the Truth of God. Now we who are also of the Truth can hear Jesus and respond to Him.
According to verse 37, why did Jesus come into the world?
Unfortunately, Pilate and so many in the world today hear the truth and then walk away, asking, “What is Truth?”
Many today cannot handle the truth. Even more cannot live the truth without hypocrisy. Like the devil, they cannot stand in the truth (see John 8:44). John’s perspective of the truth is crucial and in one of the smallest books of the New Testament, 3 John has the word truth or true seven times in 14 verses. “I have no greater joy than to hear my children walk in the truth.”
Pledge yourself today to be as honest and true as you humanly can. The truth may hurt, but it also sets you free. Like Christ, be sure to join truth with grace (John 1:17), and like Paul’s command, when you speak the truth, speak it in love (Eph. 4:15).
Pray this prayer to God: “Jesus, I confess You are the way, the truth and the life. Through Your Holy Spirit of truth, guide me in what is true. Help me to live in Your true word so that I can be set free indeed. Amen.”
Day 41: Evening
Are You The King Of The Jews?
(Read John 19:1–16)
It is likely between chapters 18 and 19 that Jesus was sent before King Herod. Three times Pilate declares, “I find no fault in Him” (John 18:38 with Luke 23:4, after being examined by Herod in 19:4 with Luke 23:14, and then finally in 19:6). With no help from Herod, except for the royal robe, Pilate has Him scourged, and the soldiers place on Him a crown of thorns, mocking His kingship.
Pilate’s reluctance to crucify Jesus is stronger in John than in any of the gospels. Notice His questions, “Are You the King of the Jews? Am I a Jew? What have you done? Are You a King then? What is Truth? Where are You from? Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You and power to release You? Shall I crucify your King?” Herod, a Jew, sought a sign, while Pilate, a Greek, sought wisdom.
Salvation and knowledge of God does not come with a demonstration of a sign, and it doesn’t come by having all of our questions answered. We come to know Christ by faith. Paul wrote, “For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
What do you seek for more in your faith, a miraculous sign or reasonable wisdom or something else?
What do you seek for more in your faith, a miraculous sign or reasonable wisdom or something else?
As we learned on Day 36, you don’t have to turn off your brain in order to become a Christian and there are solid and good reasons to believe in God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. But wisdom and knowledge begins with a healthy fear and reverence for God (“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” Ps 111:10; Prov. 9:10).
Seek God’s answers from His Word, and then accept them humbly. Skeptics ask seemingly impossible questions only to justify their doubts and unbelief. Unlike Pilate and the Jewish officials, true seekers will find answers to their questions.
Pilate knew that the Jews had delivered Jesus up out of envy, and His sign above Christ’s head as “King of the Jews” was to scorn the very people over which he ruled.
What does it mean to have Jesus be your King?
Pray this prayer to God: “Lord Jesus, thank You for the stripes and beating You took for me. Give me Your truth and wisdom in my life, that I may show Your true Kingdom’s rule in me. In the Holy name of Jesus I pray. Amen.”
Day 42: Morning
Pilate Did Not Bear The Greater Sin
(Read John 19:7–16)
When the Jews said Jesus “claimed to be the Son of God,” (NIV) Pilate became even more afraid. Perhaps something in his gut made him go back to the Man he had just flogged. Christ stood before Pontius Pilate wearing a mocking crown of thorns, His back was like raw hamburger. Even still there was something unworldly about Him. “Where are you from?” Pilate asked, knowing He was a Nazarene. He meant something deeper, but Jesus gave him no solace for that nagging pit in his stomach. Had Jesus answered “from heaven,” something makes me think Pilate would have freed Him.
Jesus however said nothing.
Had Jesus been a mere mortal man or not in such anguishing pain, He might have laughed scornfully at Pilate’s feeble assertion that he had the power to release incarnate Liberator of those held captive and oppressed by sin (Luke 4:18). Surely Christ envisioned the twelve legions of angels tearing off the roof of the Praetorium and engulfing all His enemies with fire from heaven.
“Let me ease your guilt,” the meek, bloodied Man seemed to be thinking about the man who was about to order Him to die. “You could have no power unless it had been given to you from above. The one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.”
The one? Possibly Jesus meant Caiaphas or even Judas, as more than 40 times in the New Testament the word “delivered” was translated as “betrayed” (Mark 14:42, “Here comes my betrayer”). I know I am reading into this. I know Jesus did not have this in mind. But I am going to say it anyway. The one who delivered and betrayed Jesus, could it be me? Could it be you?
You see, there is no greater sin than MY sin. I can do nothing about YOUR sin. I can do nothing about the sins of Pilate or Judas or Caiaphas. But MY sin put Christ on the cross. It was for me He died. The one with greater sin than Pontius Pilate, who could have released him, Pontius Pilate, who scourged him, the one with greater sin could very well be ME.
I may not have put Christ on the cross, but His love for me put Him there and kept Him there. And Christ not only loves me that much, He loves you too.
I come away from today’s reading wondering about Pontius Pilate, one who wanted to do one thing yet did the other, one whose internal conflict was won over by external forces. I see Pilate’s failures mirror my own. I wonder “who has the greater sin?” Pilate, who had no idea who this man from Nazareth was and what the consequences would be. Or those of us who know Him as God’s Son from heaven and by our actions, we too deliver and betray Him.
Pray this prayer to God: “Thank You Father for hearing the prayers of Your Son, who prayed, ‘lay not this sin against them, for they know not what they do,’ even though we do know what we do. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”
Day 42: Evening
The Compassion Of The Christ
(Read John 19:17–27)
Who put Christ on the cross? We did! Neither Pilate nor the Jewish authorities acted alone; the sins of humanity were responsible for the death of Christ. Isaiah 53 says, “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him.” God sent Himself in human flesh to die for us because He wanted us to have eternal life with Him.
Jesus’s mother witnessed her Son’s suffering. Others with Mary at the cross were her sister, as well as Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene and of course, John, who describes himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Matthew and Mark record the mother of James and Joses (also named Mary), was there as was Salome and the wife of Zebedee, James and John’s mother, were also there.
The Compassion of the Christ. Jesus was concerned for His mother (verses 25–27). In the midst of His suffering, He cared for others, even for one of the thieves on the cross who had just hurled insults at him. (Luke 23:43). Jesus also utters a prayer for those who are crucifying Him. He hears the taunts of the rulers but doesn’t command the earth to swallow them up.
The compassion of the Christ was greater than that of any other human who has ever lived because it was not human love. It was the manifestation of God’s incarnate love, exemplifying for us to look beyond humanity’s short-fallings and sins, to live in a spirit of forgiveness, compassion and love.
The greater the intimacy, the greater the capacity for being hurt, and with God’s infinite love for us also came tremendous pain. Christ’s pain was not only the physical suffering and mental anguish. The greatest pain of all came when Jesus took upon Himself all of the world’s sins and absorbed and absolved them.
Many of you who read this have been hurt deeply by those whom you have loved richly. Perhaps you let your heart love freely, only to see that love rejected. Out of fear of ever being hurt like that again, you may have built up walls to keep you from love. This same John who watched his best Friend die, also saw his brother James killed for his faith. Ultimately he outlived every other disciple who each died a violent martyr’s death. Yet at the end of this martyr’s life, John wrote these precious words:
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)
That kind of love is not human love. It is perfect love. In a matter of days, Jesus will tell John and all of the disciples, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” Those tender words of compassion from a heart that was broken on the cross calls to you and me, “Go and do likewise.”
Pray this prayer to God: “Compassionate Father, I praise You for Your love for me. Help me see that the pain I feel does not come from the hatred in the world but from the love which Your compassion has placed in my heart. In the name of Jesus. Amen.”
Day 43: Morning
At The Death
(Read John 19:17–37)
Don’t you wish that your Christmas credit card bills would have stamped across it Tetelestai?
Stamped what?
You would want that if you lived in the first century Grecian world. That word, “Teh-TELL-es-tai,” was actually a phrase used when bills are finally paid in full. Tetelestai signifies that Jesus finished all that He was called to do, and that our debt of sin is now atoned for. Jesus paid it all.
It is finished. Jesus finished the work and our sin debt is now paid in full. But without the resurrection, the crucifixion is not complete. Jesus had finished His work, and now the Father will do His work (1 Cor. 6:14). Jesus earlier refused the numbing effect of vinegar-wine, but received it for His parched mouth so that He could utter His final words.
The Scriptures fulfilled. In the final hours, John notes the various Scriptures that were fulfilled, including many which Jesus had no control over, such as the dividing of His garments, His legs not being broken and His side being pierced. John gives the witness of fulfilled prophecy and also His own personal testimony that what He saw was true (19:35). See Ps. 22:18; 34:20; and Zech. 12:10 for the Old Testament prophecies.
There is power in the Word of God. Read John 15:3 (“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.”) and also Ephesians 5:26 (“that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word”) The Scriptures have a cleansing power in our lives. Jesus fulfilled Scriptures from the Old Testament, so don’t limit your reading solely to the New Testament.
Have you been reading the Bible?
Does it make you feel cleansed?
Water and blood. From a medical viewpoint, we now know that those who die of a ruptured heart will have a sac of water membrane surrounding the heart. While Jesus gave up His spirit (verse 30, with “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Luke 23:46), He died of a broken heart in a very real spiritual and physical sense. As a former disciple of John the Baptist, the writer saw the significance of the water as the cleansing power of repentance Jesus offered (Luke 3:3; 1 John 5:6). But that alone is not enough. The significance of the blood was the cleansing forgiveness of the Lamb of God (John 1:29; 1 John 1:7), which forever keeps us clean.
Have you been cleansed by the Word?
Have you been cleansed in the power of the blood?
Pray this prayer to God: “I glorify You, Jesus, for Your amazing grace and love that saved me. I praise You that Your atoning work is finished. Keep me clean by keeping me in Your word and in Your will. Amen.”
Day 43: Evening
At the tomb
(Read John 19:38–42)
Matthew describes Joseph of Arimathea as rich, thus fulfilling the Isa. 53:9 prophecy that Jesus would be buried in the tomb of a rich man. Mark states that with courage, he went boldly before Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus. Luke describes him as a good and just member of the Jewish Council who did not consent to the condemnation of Jesus. He and Nicodemus (see John 3; 7:50; and 19:39) were secret disciples but became bold in revealing their faith. The two hurriedly (and apparently not completely) prepared Jesus’s body for burial.
The women who watched Joseph and Nicodemus felt the need to more completely prepare Jesus’s body after the Sabbath day passed (Mark 16:1; Luke 23:56). The two men also rolled a large rock in front of the tomb, but Pilate was later requested by the Jewish officials to place guards around the tomb for three days. They also set a seal upon the tomb to prevent anyone from tampering with the stone.
Can one be a secret disciple?
YES or NO
Read Matthew 10:32–33 below:
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.”
Can one remain a secret disciple for long?
YES or NO
John explains that Jesus was crucified near a garden and buried in a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. As a result of their actions, the two men would be ceremonially unclean for Passover, but their love for Christ compelled them to go before Pilate, purchase the burial materials and openly profess their faith by their actions.
Think of a time in which you publicly professed your faith in Jesus Christ and think of what sacrifices you have made in continuing to have a testimony of being a Christian and a disciple. A disciple is one who disciplines his life to steadfastly follow Christ’s teachings and example.
Describe a time in which you publicly professed your faith in Jesus Christ.
Commit to memory Romans 1:16 (NKJV):
For I am not ____________ of the _________ of Christ, for it is the ___________ of God to ______________________ for everyone who ___________, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
Pray this prayer of commitment to God: “Dear God, I promise to You today to never be ashamed of Christ. I will profess Him openly to those I know and those I meet. Thank You for Your confession of me before our Father. In Your name. Amen.”
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