Jesus and His disciples sat together on the Mount of Olives. After several years of hearing about the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus was giving them insight into the glorious things that lay ahead for the future of humanity.
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Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives with His disciples. He had journeyed with them to Jerusalem for what would turn into the last week of His life on earth. Now they sat on the Mount, looking out over the City of David. The grounds of the great Temple lay before them with a small valley between.
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The Sanhedrin was seething with fury. For three years they had endured the arrogant blasphemies of the young pretender named Jesus. They watched how He manipulated the people with His declarations and demonic miracles, intentionally ridiculing the leadership that God Himself ordained to rule over His chosen nation.
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Thursday of the week-long Passover Celebration had come. It was the Day of Unleavened bread, one of the highest feast days on the Jewish calendar. The official Passover lamb would be slaughtered in memory of that epic event in Egypt when God waged judgment on the Pharaoh.
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Jesus and the disciples were sharing their Passover dinner. Jesus knew that this would be His last meal with the men who had journeyed with him all over the nation of Israel. They labored with Him among the crowds on hot days, walked the many miles from town to town, leaving all the comforts of home and family life to devote themselves to this Lord and the proclamation of His Kingdom.
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The Passover Feast was a high and holy event for the Jewish people. It celebrated the memory of the great day of salvation in Jewish history. Fifteen hundred years before Jesus came to earth, God set His people free from the horrible oppression of the Egyptian Pharaoh.
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Jesus shared the first Communion with His disciples at the Passover Feast. He knew that the time had come for Him to give up His life as a sacrifice, and so He gave them a ritual the symbolized His great offering. It was a command that would be followed by every generation of His Church up to today.
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As Jesus sat with His disciples in the Upper Room, He continued to give them His last lessons before His journey to the cross. Over and over again, He showed the deep interconnectedness that they would have with Christ and His Father through the Holy Spirit.
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On His last night with His disciples, Jesus finally made it clear. The Kingdom they were going to proclaim would be far different from what they had imagined, but it was also far greater and more wonderful. As Jesus looked ahead to the days and years to come, He lifted up His eyes to His Father in Heaven and prayed.
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As Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Passover, the Lord revealed the mysteries of God’s plan to them in a much fuller way than they had ever understood before.
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Jesus knelt in prayer in the darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane. In an agony of prayer, He asked His Father to remove the terrible trial before Him. The Father’s answer was no, and so He surrendered to His Father’s will.
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In the quiet of night, as His disciples fell into weary sleep, Jesus went to His Father in prayer. Three times He asked that the burden would be removed. Could the Father take away this task? Could Jesus somehow avoid the coming torment?
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It was the night of Jesus’ arrest. After being accused in the home of Annas, He was lead to the home of Caiaphas. Peter continued to follow along behind.
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The religious rulers had decided the outcome of Jesus’ trial long before the night of His arrest. They had to make sure that it ended with His death. He was far too dangerous. When they learned that Jesus and His disciples spent their nights in the Garden of Gethsemane, they acted quickly.
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To a man like Pontius Pilate, the Jewish Sanhedrin must have seemed like a ridiculous horde of men. Pilate was the Roman governor appointed by the Roman Caesar, the most powerful man in the world. The Roman Empire had conquered the known world and dominated history for hundreds of years.
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Jesus had spent the entire night after His arrest in the halls of the Jewish leaders. They had accused Him, beaten Him, and sent Him on to Pilate to make sure that His judgment would end in death. When Pilate witnessed the jealousy of the leaders and the breathtaking dignity of Christ, he could not bring himself to make the judgment that the leaders were demanding.
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The sentence against Jesus was pronounced by Pilate. His soldiers led Jesus into the Praetorium. They called the whole Roman battalion of soldiers to the courtyard. There were over a hundred men gathered around the Lord, ready to use Him for sport to relieve their boredom.
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The judgment had come against Christ. Though Pilate and Herod found nothing against Him, the rage and manipulations of the Jewish leadership prevailed.
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As Jesus hung on the cross in those early hours of His suffering, many stood by and watched. Even then there was a chance that something might happen. Would He prove Himself to be powerful enough to overcome this travesty?
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Jesus travailed on the cross for six hours, bearing the punishment for the sins of humanity. It is impossible for us to imagine what it was like.
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