Long Ago, and At Many Times God Spoke

 

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:1–4 ESV).

 

I hope you had a wonderful Easter! What an incredible time of year to see the hand of God in fresh ways. It seems that is at the heart of where I want to begin with Morning Devotionals for the rest of this month. So, today we begin in the first chapter of the Book of Hebrews.

 

The author of Hebrews is unknown. He knew Timothy (cf. 13:23). He was not an eyewitness of Jesus (cf. 2:1, 3). The letter was written very early in comparison to the other books of the New Testament, probably before 70 AD. Early manuscripts bear the title “To the Hebrews,” which reflects the ancient assumption that it was written to Jewish Christians as well as Gentile Christians who previously had been drawn to the Jewish religion.

 

The theme of the letter is simply that Jesus is greater than any angel, priest, or old covenant practice. We will see the instruction that believers must not forsake the great salvation that Jesus has brought about, and that they must hold on by faith to the true rest found in Christ. The author encourages the readers to minister to others with this truth. Jesus is superior to any other revelation God may have given in the past. He writes of Jesus: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (v. 3). The word translated “radiance” is ἀπαύγασμα (apaugasma). It refers to Christ's eternal radiance, that is to say that His brilliance supremely reflects the effulgent glory of the Godhead. His eternal light breaks through all the darkness that keeps someone in spiritual ignorance (bondage) and thus protects us from every attack exerted by sin.

 

In Augustine’s writings against the Manichaeans, he argues that Christ, as the "brightness" of God's glory, must be equal to the Father. He notes that just as there is nothing "round about the sun but its brightness which is produced from it," there is no separation between the Father and His Son. He further highlights that through the Son, God "created the world" and that the Son "upholds the universe by the word of his power". In his Confessions, he reflects on how the whole creation is supported by this divine power. This is the Savior who has given His life for us. It underscores the great love and value He shows toward each of us. That is the strength we may draw on in our daily needs! Jesus was no mere prophet telling others what God said. He is God, telling us the good news of redemption!

 

Easter Sunday - 2026

 

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened. (Luke 24:1–12 ESV).

 

I remember the first time I visited the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. It is located just outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls, near the Damascus Gate. It lies in a quiet, walled garden. It’s shaded by trees, filled with flowers, and isolated from the chaos of the city. It was a profoundly affecting experience. We were allowed to actually enter the tomb and spend a moment in reflection of the event of Jesus’ resurrection. After each of our group had spent some time there we moved to a beautiful flowering vine covered gazebo nearby and I was able to lead us in a celebration of communion. It was amazing.

 

While scholars continue to debate whether this is the actual burial place of Jesus, the Garden Tomb has become less about certainty of location and more about certainty of faith. It’s a tangible reminder that the resurrection wasn’t just a story. I was a real event that happened in a real place, at a real moment in history – the moment that is the foundation for the faith of anyone who calls themselves “Christians.”

 

Similarly, the disciples and the women who had followed Jesus had heard him talk about rising from the dead on the third day, but they had not understood what he had actually meant. So when they saw the empty tomb after the crucifixion, and when they eventually saw Jesus alive again, he took their breath away! Here was the living Jesus, walking and talking, eating food, and holding his damaged hands out for them to see.

 

Today the church remembers that breathtaking surprise: Jesus’ resurrection. We talk about it as, among other things, the beginning of a new creation, with Jesus being the firstborn from among the dead. It’s enough to take our breath away—the miracle itself, and then all of the many other miracles that it set in motion. Please do not get lost in the busy schedules of the day. Family and friends, children’s activities, all of these are good; however, the real significance is found in the life that is ours through Jesus. It is forever and it is perfect in every way! That is the message of Easter!

 

Silent Saturday - 2026

 

So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there. (John 19:40–42 ESV).

 

Holy Saturday is often known as “Silent Saturday.” It does not get much attention in the life of the Church. Most of us mark Maundy Thursday with communion, Good Friday with a dark liturgy of worship, and Easter Sunday with an explosive celebration. However, Holy Saturday is the day that we need to acknowledge God’s silence. This day is one in which we sense God’s inaction. Holy Saturday is the day we begin to feel the sting of death and sense the sadness that death has spoken the final word.

 

Mary Magdalene must have felt the deepest of grief on Holy Saturday. She was a tormented outcast who was healed by Jesus and had been welcomed as part of His entourage. Mary deeply loved Jesus. He was everything to her! Holy Saturday must have been so disappointing for Mary. We don’t have a record of what she did on Saturday. As a Jew, Mary’s activity on the Sabbath would have been very restricted. There was not much she could do on Holy Saturday. The silence of Saturday must have signaled a new normal that was so, so disappointing to embrace. Jesus had filled her life with so much goodness, beauty, and purpose and now He was gone for good. You may know the feeling. Perhaps you've been where Mary was at that moment. There are those times in our lives when things have gone horribly awry and you're wondering "Where is God at the very moment that I need Him?"

 

He is present. Life in a Holy Saturday season is hard, but it is not hopeless. High praise is coming on Sunday, but not until we pass through the crushing silence of Saturday. If you find yourself in a Holy Saturday season of feeling abandoned by God, prayers unheard and unanswered, remember you are in good company. And, like Mary, you will have your sunrise moment when Jesus shows His good work in your life!

 

Good Friday - 2026

 

So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” (John 19:16–19 ESV).

 

Marshall Segal, CEO and President of Desiring God, a ministry of John Piper said the following about the “Good Friday”:

 

When Jesus went to the cross for you, you were not worth dying for. It wasn’t something in you that convinced him to bear the nails, the thorns, the wrath. We’ve heard so much about his real and wondrous love for us that we might forget his love is wondrous precisely because we were not. Because, when he set his loving eyes on us, we were corrupt, defiant, repulsive. We were the treacherous wife prostituting herself out and then spending the husband’s money on other lovers. We should have been swallowed by holy rage, not by his mercy.

 

There is so much truth in this quote. The Apostle Paul said it as well:

 

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:6–9 ESV).

 

In our church, Gospel City Church in Arlington, Texas, the pastor is often heard remarking that “Jesus paid the debt we could never pay and died the death we all deserved.” He is so correct!

 

Think on this truth. The Creator of all things; the One who by His word alone spoke all of the universe into existence; and the only One who bore no guilt took our sin and guilt to the cross on our behalf. Can we ever comprehend the vast significance of that truth? John Calvin said of the cross: “Sin was conquered on the cross. [Christ's] death is the foundation of our hope, the promise of our triumph!” Could there be any greater grace extended than that… well, we shall see there is one more great gift of grace. When Jesus stepped forth from that tomb eternally resurrected, He also conquered death itself on our behalf! This is the Amazing Grace of our God!

 

Holy Thursday - 2026

 

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.” (John 13:1–11 ESV).

 

Holy Thursday, also known as Maundy Thursday, is a Christian holy day that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with his apostles. It falls on the Thursday before Easter Sunday and marks the beginning of the Paschal Triduum, the three-day period that includes Good Friday and Holy Saturday, culminating in the celebration of the Resurrection. Many people are not familiar with the word “Maundy.” On its own, the word maundy means “the ceremony of washing the feet of the poor, especially commemorating Jesus’s washing of his disciples’ feet on Maundy Thursday.” Recorded around 1250–1300 AD, the word maundy comes from the Old French mande, in turn from the Latin mandātum, which means “mandate or command.” As you may surmise, this Latin word is the source of the English mandate.

 

A bit of chronology might be helpful at this point. As the Passover Meal concluded, Jesus gave some final instructions to His disciples—and to all who would follow Him in the centuries to come. Then He did something quite remarkable. He took a towel and poured water into a basin and began washing the disciples’ feet (v. 5). In First Century Israel, most people wore sandals and walked on dusty or muddy roads that were often covered by animal droppings. The task of cleaning people’s feet was given to a slave, or the lowliest servant in the home. But Jesus knelt before each of His disciples—even Judas who would betray Him—and took the role of the humblest servant.

 

Then He spoke the words that would give this solemn day its name, “Maundy Thursday.” Later in the upper room Jesus would give them one of His last directives: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you…”  (John 13:34). Of course, this is in stark contrast at the scourging and crucifixion as Jesus’ focus was on love.

 

Jesus took on the sins of the world on Calvary—including your sins and mine—to make a way for us to have a restored relationship with God. That is what Maundy Thursday is all about. In the world, filled with so much sorrow and sadness, Christ’s command to love one another shines like a beacon in the darkness. My hope and prayer is that you would resist the polarization so commonly practiced in our culture today. By grace, let each of us pick up this commandment of Jesus to lost and hurting people everywhere—thus fulfilling His desire for the future of His Church.

 

Holy Wednesday - 2026

 

Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. (Matthew 26:6–16 ESV).

 

Holy Wednesday remembers the day when both faithful Mary and treacherous Judas prepare Jesus to die. After an increasingly public string of challenges to both Rome and the temple system, the religious elite believe that Jesus is a threat to their kingdom and religion (cf. John 11:48). If Jesus is not killed, they believe Rome will come, take what little power they have left, and destroy their temple (cf. John 11:50; Matthew 26:3-4). Believing it’s better for one man to die than for a whole nation to be lost, the religious elite make their final plans to kill Jesus.

 

Meanwhile, a woman named Mary takes a jar of perfume valued at 300 pieces of silver (or a year’s salary), cracks it open, pours it over Jesus’ head and feet, and rubs it into his skin with her hair (cf. John 12:3). It’s not only lavish but socially awkward and humiliating. Horrified, Judas speaks up for the disciples. He calls Mary’s display wasteful and argues the perfume should have been sold and spent on the poor (cf. John 12:4-5; Matthew 26:8-9). But Jesus quiets Judas and tells the disciples Mary is doing the right thing. He says: “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me” (v. 11).

 

Jesus isn’t dismissing care for the poor with this statement, he’s highlighting the value of what he has come to do. Like the religious elite have said, the only way to save God’s people is if he is killed. Mary understands that Jesus must die, so she embalms him in advance. To her, it’s no “waste” to offer her most precious possession if it prepares Jesus for the burial that will save God’s people (Matthew 26:12). But Judas realizes Jesus is no longer useful to him. So, he sneaks away and tells the religious elite he will betray Jesus for a tenth of what Mary poured out (vv. 14-15).

 

Strangely, everyone in this story is preparing for Jesus to die. The religious elite offer a bribe to more easily capture Jesus. Judas betrays Jesus for another month’s expenses. And Mary prepares him to be laid in a tomb. Even more strangely, everybody believes Jesus must die in order to save them. Judas thought Jesus’ death would save his financial status. The religious elite thought Jesus’ death would prevent Rome from breathing more heavily down their necks. But Holy Wednesday is good news because Jesus announces that his death will save God’s people not from Rome or poverty, but from death itself (cf. John 11:51-52).

 

Holy Tuesday - 2026

 

And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:1–2 ESV).

 

On Tuesday of Passion Week Jesus returns to Jerusalem from Bethany. According to most scholars this is when Jesus was issued various challenges by the Pharisees and Sadducees over subjects such as marriage in heaven, paying taxes to Caesar, and the source of His authority (cf. Matthew 21:23-23:39; Mark 11:27-12:44; Luke 20:1-21:4). It is also the day Jesus commented on the widow’s donation (cf. Mark 12; Luke 21) and was approached by believing Greeks (cf. John 12:20–36). Additionally, we see the most direct and scathing judgement that Jesus spoke over the Pharisees. They have been called His seven “woes” (cf. Matthew 23:13–36). In the evening He delivered the Olivet Discourse (cf. Matthew 24-25; Mark 13; Luke 21:5–36).

 

It is the latter of these that we will focus our attention on today. Our reading is taken from the beginning of Mark’s account of the vast teaching. One of the disciples turned and looked at the magnificent temple structure, which was truly one of the wonders of the ancient world. Still in amazement at this building, which he had probably seen hundreds of times, he said to Jesus: “Look at that. Isn’t that something?” He directed the gaze of Jesus not to the temple built by Solomon in the Old Testament, which was destroyed, but to the temple that was being rebuilt by Herod the Great. The construction of this temple by Herod had begun fifty years before this occasion. It still was not finished. The image attached is a rendering from Scripture and Josephus developed by The Temple Institute in Israel.

 

To give you some idea of the Herodian temple, the outer court measured five hundred by three hundred yards. The outer court was five football fields by three football fields. The temple itself took up thirty-five acres of ground. Herod was known throughout the world for his incredible construction products and for the development of what have been called “Herodian stones.” Josephus tells us that some of the stones making up the temple were sixty feet long. We are talking about one stone: sixty feet long, eleven feet high, eight feet deep, each one weighing over a million pounds. Some historians of antiquity said the temple of Herod in Jerusalem looked like a mountain of marble decorated with gold. The disciples were looking at the temple, standing in awe of what seemed to be an impregnable structure that nothing imaginable could destroy. As the disciples were in awe at this magnificent edifice, Jesus said: “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (v. 2). In other words: “Do you see those sixty by eight by eleven feet stones that weigh one million pounds? They’re going to be crushed into dust.” Oh… and they were in 70 AD.

 

Let me telescope for a moment. Jesus said: “Three things are going to happen: one, the temple is going to be destroyed; two, Jerusalem is going to be destroyed; three, I’ll be coming on the clouds of glory at the end of the age.” The first question out of the disciples’ mouths is, “Well when will that be?”

 

Jesus did not give them a specific answer to that question; and, we still don’t have the answer to that question. Many have tried to understand the fullness of Jesus’ description of “the times and season.” However, no one has that answer fully. What we do know is that the three days of the cross, burial, and resurrection a new Temple was being constructed. This is the reason Jesus instructed His disciples to be vigilant:

 

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” (Mark 13:32–37 ESV).

 

Are you awake… or have you been lulled into sleep? Awaken… your Savior is indeed coming again!