What Jesus Knew

What Jesus Knew

Matthew 26:1-2, NKJV

Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples, 2“You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

Setting the Scene

Long before the final trip to Jerusalem, Jesus had prepared his followers for what would happen to him and why it needed to happen: “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day” (Matthew 16:21, NKJV). Then, shortly after his transfiguration on the mountain, Jesus again told his disciples, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up” (Matthew 17:22-23, NKJV). Later, as they made their way toward Jerusalem, Jesus was even more explicit: “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again” (Matthew 20:18-19, NKJV).

The disciples could not seem to put together what Jesus was telling them with the authority they saw him exercising over sickness, the demonic, natural forces, and even death. He seemed impervious to threats or danger. It upset them to hear him make such dire predictions when they were witnesses to his supernatural power.

Jesus’ final trip to Jerusalem was planned and timed to coincide with Passover. The significance of Jesus’ death at this particular time of the year was indirectly included in John the Baptist’s great declaration, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, NKJV). Every year for millennia, thousands of lambs had been slaughtered at Passover commemorating the historic event in which God had allowed the blood of lambs to secure the safety of Israel’s families on that epic night in Egypt (see Exodus 11–12). The temporary atonement for sin that the Passover lambs provided was about to be replaced with the perfect substitute sacrifice—God’s Son. As the spotless Lamb of God, Jesus served as the willing recipient of the penalty of death brought about by sin. By him, through him, and in him we have “redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14, NKJV).

In all that Jesus did and said, we see deliberate movement toward the Cross. In the counsels of God, the decision had already been made. Jesus was simply carrying out the plan of salvation because no alternative would do. He went to the Cross because he chose to, because of the “joy that was set before Him” (Hebrews 12:2, NKJV). That week in Jerusalem, when the flocks of perfect lambs were rounded up for the ritual Passover slaughter, a spotless lamb was added to the flock that made all the other sacrificial lambs no longer necessary. The Lamb of God took away the sins of the world.

Getting Personal

What does it mean to you to realize Jesus knew ahead of time exactly what would happen in Jerusalem, yet he resolutely went anyway?

How did the Feast of the Passover parallel what was happening to Jesus?

Romans 10:9 insists, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (NIV). We don’t have to understand everything before we can trust that Jesus knew what he was doing for us when he went to the Cross.

Talking to God

God graciously holds our future in his hands, so we don’t have to live with too much knowledge—and anxiety—about the future. Thank him for his sovereign goodness and power that allows you to trust him completely. Thank him for the sacrifice of Jesus, who walked into his future, knowing full well the suffering that was there. Thank him for the spotless Lamb, who has taken away your sin.