“My times are in your hands…. “(Psalm 31:15)

These certainly are unusual times, and we are learning how to live a new normal. But what if everything we have ever learned or experienced in life has been leading us to this time in our lives. Without realizing it, we have been preparing for just this moment so we can demonstrate our faith, our willingness to serve, our mandate to love God and others in the most difficult and unusual of circumstances.

Bringing us to the crucifixion which happened on Friday of Holy Week which we are now celebrating, we can reflect on the fact that Jesus had all along been preparing for just this time because he knew even at age twelve that he was about his Father’s business. Jesus had a purpose for how he spent his thirty-three years on earth.

• Early in his ministry, he told his mother: “Woman, why do you involve me?” He went on to say, “My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4).
• Later in his ministry he told his brothers, “You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.”  (John 7:8).
• However, Jesus did go to the festival privately, and then went to the temple to teach. Although the authorities were seeking to arrest him, no one laid a hand on him. He was spared, he said, because “his hour had not yet come” (John 7:30).
• Immediately following the festival, Jesus again taught in the temple, and no one arrested him despite the threats. John explains that “his hour had not yet come” (John 8:20).

It was not until the week before His crucifixion that he acknowledged that his time had finally come.

• Then when Jesus had made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem… “there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival.  They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘we would like to see Jesus.’  Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus. Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’” (John 12:20-23).
• And when Jesus was praying with his disciples at Gethsemane during His last week before the crucifixion, “After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you” (John 17:1).

Some Bible scholars say that the Gentiles seeking Jesus in John 12:21 were the triggering event for Jesus to declare that his time had now come, that this request by the Gentiles triggered the plan that God had designed all along to reconcile his people back to himself—Jesus’ arrest, trials, humiliation, condemnation, beatings, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension. 

This is a solemn reminder that God has a plan, and it will come to pass in his own timing. There will be a triggering event and then all the elements of Christ’s Second Coming will fall into place as described in the Bible. There is some disagreement about all the events and the exact timing, but there is no disagreement among believers that the Second Coming will happen. That is what we long for with hope. 

The Jewish people knew that the Messiah would come; they had the writings of the Prophets to tell them many of the signs they could expect to see to confirm His first coming. But they were still taken by surprise when He did.

We should not be surprised when trials and tribulations come. Jesus told us in John 16:33“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

We celebrate Christmas and Jesus’ first coming, and we celebrate Easter and His resurrection. We know the Jesus will come again. In John 14:3, Jesus states, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”  We know what many of the signs will be. We just don’t know when. However, we should not be surprised when the time comes. We have been informed. Be ready.

In Christ,

Judy