Behold the King of Glory: A Narrative of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Russ Ramsey

Author:Russ Ramsey [Ramsey, Russ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2015-01-31T08:00:00+00:00

After the dinner, Jesus left and continued on toward Jerusalem. Along the way he stopped to address the great crowds that were with him. He asked them what they hoped to find by following him. Many were simply curious observers. But some were ready to follow him to the ends of the earth. Had they counted the cost?

Jesus told them, “If you are not willing and able to walk away from everything you hold dear and bear up under your own cross daily, you do not want to follow me.”9

In a world where people worked so hard to establish their worth by way of position and rank, these followers needed to know they would find no honor in this world by associating with Jesus. Instead, they would find trouble, sorrow, and persecution.10 To do this, they would have to be willing to find their worth in no one but God alone. If they could not see themselves as needy and desperate, they did not see themselves as they truly were.

As a result, Jesus attracted fewer and fewer of the prominent and powerful, and more and more of the sinful and broken. This itself was an offense to the teachers of the law. They were incredulous that tax collectors and sinners were drawn to him and that he received them and ate with them.11

Jesus stopped and gathered the religious leaders together to tell them some stories about lost things found. He told them about a shepherd who lost a sheep from his fold, and how he left the ninety-nine remaining sheep to find the one that was lost. When he found it, he hoisted it onto his shoulders and carried it back to his fold. The return of that sheep, Jesus said, brought the shepherd the kind of joy God finds in one sinner who repents.12

Then he told them about a woman who, when she lost a silver coin, turned over everything in her house to find it. When she found it, her joy was uncontainable. This joy, Jesus told them, is the kind of joy God feels over one penitent heart.13

Jesus’s point was not lost on the religious leaders—God cared about the recovery of the lost. He rejoiced when the hopeless were restored. But then Jesus told them a third story, and this time they realized it was about them.

“There was a man who had two sons,” Jesus began.

One day the younger son went to his father and said, “I want you to give me my share of the inheritance now.”

Everything about this scene would have ruffled the feathers of the religious leaders. To ask for his inheritance while the father was still alive was the same as saying he wished his father were already dead. But the father agreed and divided his property between his boys. The younger son took his money and left town, chasing every appetite that came his way until he had nothing left. Desperate, he took a job feeding pigs, wishing every day that he could eat as well as those unclean beasts under his charge.

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