Have you ever accidentally purchased a car? Ever unintentionally bought a house? Ever mistakenly flew to Timbuktu, when you planned to drive to Noble?
Didn’t think so.
Why? Well because in all of these scenarios, we have the ability and agency to effect the outcome … and many steps are involved.
To purchase a car you have to drive to a dealership, select the vehicle, negotiate the price, sign the contract, produce the funds, THEN you have bought the vehicle. After that many decisions stacked together, it is not an accident but a process of your will.
To buy a house, you have to find the property, make an offer, schedule lots of inspections and tests, arrange financing or save the money in advance, THEN you have bought the house. After 30-60 days of work, it is hard to call that a surprise purchase!
And with so many options on where someone might travel and how someone might travel there, no one mistakes their hatchback for an American Airlines flight! You can’t trick someone into making that big of a vacation vexation.
Now, why do I go through these examples? I am simply trying to point out that there are things we do in life that we do on purpose … then there are things that happen to us in life that we cannot stop.
I cannot control if a wildfire will burn my house down tonight. I cannot control if hail will destroy my roof this spring. I cannot control the day of my birth or the day of my death. These things are above our pay grade!
Some things we seem to influence, while others are beyond our reach. This is true for us as people because we are finite limited beings.
With this backdrop, I want us to turn to John 18:1-11 … the passage of Scripture we will be studying Sunday morning, March 16 at Wildwood Community Church in part 1 of the “Trial to Triumph” Easter series. In this passage we see Jesus arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and taken to a set of trials that ultimately would culminate at the cross. Far from presenting Jesus as Someone stumbling His way into a tricky spot or being overcome by a superior force or freak accident, Jesus is the Sovereign in John’s account, demonstrating clearly that Jesus’ life was not taken from Him, but that He freely laid it down. Jesus made so many intentional decisions that led Him from Heaven to Bethlehem to Galilee to Gethsemane to Calvary, that we must conclude that Jesus knew what He was “buying” during His earthly life. His cross ransom was no surprise purchase. And since Jesus is God, we are reminded that no force existed that could overcome Him … not the Romans, not the Jewish High Priests, not the Temple guard, not a betraying friend. For Jesus to go to the cross, He needed to ALLOW IT TO HAPPEN … to lay down His life for the sheep.
And why? Out of His love for us, and fidelity to His Father’s will, Jesus laid down His life for both God’s greatest glory and our greatest good.
For the next 6 weeks at Wildwood we will be walking with Jesus to the cross to see the triumph Jesus delivered for you and me through the tomb. See you Sunday in part 1 in our 8:30, 9:45, or 11:00 service … and bring friends! This is a message we all need to hear.