Timothy J. Clarke - Journey to the Resurrection

Beloved, we come today, this Sunday morning, on this journey toward the resurrection. Doug, I’m so glad to see you. We come to what is commonly known among us in the modern Christian Church as Holy Week. Now, of course, this is not Holy Week, but we are in a seven-week series that is looking individually at every day of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday and, of course, culminating on Resurrection Sunday.

Now, Deacon Gloria, let me just say this: I am aware, I am cognizant of the fact that I have thrown several of you into a serious state of discombobulation. I know, I know some of you have been scratching your heads, trying to figure out, first of all, what in the world is Pastor doing up here starting in February, now in March, looking at Holy Week? Why is he up there on the first Sunday in March talking about Holy Week and one of the days? I know, I know, I know you come to church for regularity and consistency, and I know I have thrown, how shall I say it, a biblical theological monkey wrench into your liturgical year.

But I think I tried my best to explain to you last Sunday why I and others of my sons and daughters, brothers and sisters in Berean, are preaching our way through Holy Week. Because, as I said last Sunday, we live in a world—I will not stay on this long—we live in a world that is not only biblically inaccurate in many ways, but it is also biblically illiterate. Those who think they know the Word are often inaccurate about what they think they know, and those who know the Word and are inaccurate are accompanied by maybe an even larger group of people, and those are they who are biblically illiterate.

Now, saying that, Deacon Chanel, bothers me to no end because I grew up in a day and time when the Bible was central to our lives and to our being. All of us—Deacon Skeleton, all of us—grew up in a home with several things: you had a cookbook. I know y’all don’t have any of those in your houses. You had a set of encyclopedias, World Book or whatever it was, and you had a Bible, usually in the living room on a coffee table. Are y’all with me?

I tell you, it was heavy—you could almost get a hernia picking it up! My goodness, it was as big as all outdoors. That Bible stayed with me now in the living room on the coffee table, and you’ve got to picture it: in the center of the living room, which was the center of the house, the Word was at the center of who we are as a family. We’ve lost that. My God, now the center of our family is flat-screen televisions! Y’all are getting quiet on me.

And my goodness, the filth they bring into our houses—the profanity, the vulgarity, and the promiscuity. Why is it that when I preach like this it gets quieter and quieter the longer I go? We have put upon the walls of our houses, almost from wall to wall, these large, massive flat-screen televisions, surround sound, and they let everything and anything into our homes. We moved the Bible and put HBO, Cinemax—y’all are getting quiet on me—and all this other stuff at the center of our lives.

The church and the pulpit have to declare it’s time to bring the Word back! I’m trying to get help here, but I don’t know where to look. One of the ways we do that is by focusing ourselves not only on the great doctrines and teachings of the Word of God, but also on—here it is, Uncle George—those great days of the Christian calendar. So, I’m asking you to join me on this journey. I know you’re discombobulated; I know I’ve messed up. You don’t know whether to wear your Easter clothes next Sunday or not because you don’t know what to wear since he’s up there preaching about Holy Week in February and early March.

But I want us to understand what Christ did for us, what it cost Him to save us, and how when He entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday—I told you last week—He entered the point of no return. So today, this Sunday, we are walking our way around Tuesday of Holy Week. On Sunday, Jesus comes to the city; on Monday, He goes to the temple and cleans it out. When He gets through cleaning out the temple because they’ve turned it into a flea market, Ted says He leaves and goes back to where He’s staying. Then the text today tells us that the next morning, He heads back to the city.

Now, what is interesting is that on His way back through the city, I don’t know why—obviously Starbucks wasn’t open, or Panera, or Wendy’s—so He’s hungry! Isn’t that what the text says? He sees a fig tree and expects to find fruit. I’m going to come back to that. Finding none, He curses that tree and says, «Let no fruit ever grow on you again, ” and immediately the tree withers.