Thursday Teaching

While preachers like to think that every sermon is divinely inspired, such is, unfortunately, not true.  Some are inspired by lesser things.  A preacher or two have been known to preach grudge sermons using the pulpit to have the last word with some antagonistic church member.  Others have been inspired by a sense of desperation as the clock ticked away the minutes on Saturday night.  But, it is also true that some sermons convict the preacher in such a way that they are preached with an overwhelming sense of passion and urgency.  At such moments the preacher anxiously awaits the preaching hour; yet, is scared to death when it arrives.

 

Thursday was surely a day when Jesus sensed an overwhelming sense of urgency for the teaching that came from His heart.  In some ways it was like a final word to the disciples.  It was a last opportunity to speak a word that He had carried heavily in His heart; yet, still not grasped by those who should have gotten it right by the day before the day He would be with them no more.  As we read those passages of the Word associated with Thursday of Holy Week, we find ourselves in the midst of such teachings.  We find ourselves going back again and again to that table where the bread and wine are given and feet are washed.  We read not once but often about those moments in the garden.  And even though centuries have passed, the urgency of those teachings is still overpowering.

 

Today is certainly a day for going back into the Word and allowing the events of Thursday to wash over us.  It is a moment for listening again to those teachings about serving and sacrificing and seeing how Jesus not only spoke such words, but fleshed them out.  What He said in those final hours before the cross not only give understanding to what was going to happen on the cross, but it also points the way forward for those of us desire to walk the way of the cross with Him.