“It is Hidden in the Savior’s Solitude”
Passage: Luke 18:31-34
Date: March 5, 2025, Ash Wednesday
Pastor: Pastor Horton
Our Lenten journey this year begins with the Lenten journey of Jesus and his disciples as it was so many years ago. We hear Jesus’ call to go with him up to Jerusalem and to the cross in Luke 18:31-34: “He took the Twelve aside and said to them, “‘Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. Indeed, he will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, mistreat him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him. On the third day, he will rise again.’ They did not understand any of these things. What he said was hidden from them, and they did not understand what was said.”
Jesus’ call to them and to us on this Ash Wednesday, gives us a bloodcurdling preview of what we are about to see in
this great drama of Lent. It is horrible in the extreme. It is shocking. The Creator of the universe will be mocked and insulted? How can that be? The one who gave us breath at birth will be beaten within an inch of his life? Is that possible? He who is the author of every good and perfect gift that we have ever had since we were born, will be cruelly tormented and then shamefully executed? His glory is hidden – hidden completely in the cross.
Do you ever wish that you could have been there? Does the thought ever spring to mind: “Ah, Lord Jesus, if only you could have taken me along! Maybe I could have helped you. Maybe I could have wiped your face with a cool towel. Maybe I could have yelled to the crowds that all that you were doing was for our salvation. Maybe I could have been at least one witness on your behalf at your trials. Maybe I could have done something, just some little thing, to lighten your burden, to show my love and gratitude for what you were doing for me.” Don’t you sometimes want to say that to him as he begins his journey again to the cross?
Jesus takes us aside with the Twelve and announces, “We are going up to Jerusalem.” And by faith we follow after him but we cannot help him. The Twelve could not help him either. Take note of the glory hidden in the coming cross. Jesus makes it clear that “We are going up to Jerusalem.” And after that one little word, “we,” the subject of the sentence changes. He does not say, “We are
going up, and we will suffer.” No. We are going up. But it is Jesus alone who will suffer. The Son of Man alone will fulfill the Scriptures. The Son of Man alone will be mocked, insulted, spit upon, flogged, and killed. All who follow him to the cross, his first disciples and we along with them, can therefore only be spectators at this great drama that is about to unfold. He will not go there to show off his glory. His glory is that he alone is the Savior. His glory is hidden in the horrible solitude of all he suffered that our salvation should be entirely the gift that comes through his cross and his alone.
This is the way it must be, Jesus would tell us. For he is going with purpose. He is going to fulfill the Scriptures, to fulfill all that was written about him in the Old Testament. Nothing will soften the blows. Nothing will relieve the pain. No one will help him. Not his mother, not the Twelve, not the church or the state; no one helped him. To be sure, the angels served him for a moment in Gethsemane. But during his trial and execution, even the angels are nowhere to be told. Oh, what sadness that we cannot help him whom we love and adore!
The truth is that we would prefer to have the shame of his passion hidden and the glory of his resurrection on display. But Jesus will have none of that. All will see his shame. No one will view the glory of the resurrection. That will be hidden and made known only by his Word and the testimony of the few who saw him after that incredible event.
But there is still more to it than all that. Not only do we not help him in his agony – we caused it all in the first place. From beginning to end, all that he has said that he will do on this journey he is doing in our place, in our stead, and on our behalf. Was he despised and rejected? We should have been. Was he left alone with no help in the hour of pain and sorrow? We should be. Did even his Father abandon him at the crucial moment on the cross so that in the midst of life he was suffering the torments of the condemned in hell? That was our lot. We were conceived and born deserving that. We have turned aside from his Word and sinned every day so that we deserve his suffering for all time and for all eternity.
And truth be told, we didn’t even care that our sins would bring him to such suffering, such abuse, such a death. How many times in a day do we turn aside from him without even thinking and refuse even to go up with him to Jerusalem? We have better things to do. We have our minds and hearts fixed not on him but on our own pleasure and convenience. It is easier to watch television or scroll on our phones than to pray. It is more convenient to love gossip or the lusts of the flesh than his cross. For family bickering, there is always time. For his Word and a family devotion, well, perhaps later. It is time now, we often think, for the sports highlights, not for highlights in his words of salvation.
And it gets worse still. We imagine in our total wickedness and depravity that we are not totally wicked and depraved. We yawn or maybe even get irritated when someone points it out, especially during Lent. We vainly assume that somehow or other there is at least a scrap of merit in us for which we should not have to suffer and for which he should therefore not have had to suffer either. To put it another way, we imagine there is some good in us that does not require his journey to the cross. We don’t like to recognize, much less confess the sin of our arrogance. It is the sin of thinking that at least a little bit in us needs no forgiveness and, yes, is even deserving of some eternal reward.
Where’s Jesus? Going up to Jerusalem to suffer for everything that we are and have been when we did not perfectly love God and serve him with all of our hearts, all of our minds, all of our strength. And when was that? Every moment of our lives!
For we go up to Jerusalem, up to the cross with him in Lent. But don’t follow too closely, as if you were going to somehow be of help to him. We can do nothing to help him. All that we have done only adds to his sorrow, his pain, his suffering, his death. We are the cause even on our best days. We are his curse.
And so we go up there with him, following him at a distance, as he carries his cross all alone. It is Jesus who must suffer and die. He, and he alone, must do it all, or we are doomed. Just think of it! If he had required our help in
order to accomplish our redemption – we only would have ruined it. We are sinners. We cannot do anything at all that does not carry the stench of sin, the smell of death, the sulfur of hell on it. We go up with him. But he must do it all, or we are lost. That is the glory hidden in the solitude of the cross, the solitude that Jesus must do it alone or we must perish.
And yet take heart! As we follow Jesus up to Jerusalem as he invited, we see in him: our deliverance! Lent holds both sorrow and great joy. He is our peace, our life, our salvation. Listen to him as you go up with him to Jerusalem. There is not one word of complaint that falls from his lips. There is not the least trace of bitterness or
anger in his tone. He does not accuse us as we deserve. He does not shame us as we might expect. No, none of that. He alone will suffer, and he will suffer alone.
And that is exactly the way he wants it to be. His march to Jerusalem is a march of doom for him but of triumph for us. It is defeat and death for him but a victory parade for us. His face is set with determination to do all that needs to be done to fulfill the Scriptures for us. His will is like iron and cannot be bent to turn him away from his purpose of paying the price of our wickedness and our total depravity. So full, so perfect, so complete is his love for us. So full, so perfect, so complete is his yearning for our salvation. He wants to do it! He not only does not need our help; he does not want our help either! Every fiber of his being strains and stretches on the way to the cross for our salvation. Without our aid, he made us. Without our aid, he redeems us.
Now let us go up to Jerusalem with him! Let us follow him starting this Ash Wednesday, but not too closely as though we would help him. Let us go up with him and follow to the cross. Let us be filled with sorrow for our sin that caused it all. But then let us be filled with joy beyond all sorrow, that he did it all and he did it alone in great love. For that is the glory hidden on the cross, the glory that he wanted, the glory of redeeming us by his work there. Let us watch and keep watching until we hear the victory cry: HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED! Amen.
