"a Journey Towards Redemption: Calvary Road" Series

A Journey Towards Redemption:

Calvary Road

Mark 14:1-15:27

Watch on YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq8DgUTcbwE

Today we’re continuing our Easter Journey. Last week we looked at the road Jesus took as He entered Jerusalem, or the Jerusalem Road. On that road, we saw that it was a road of humility, fulfillment, obedience, and a road that leads to our destiny.

It was this last aspect of the Jerusalem Road that got me thinking about the next road Jesus took. It’s a road that continues from the Jerusalem Road, and that is the road that led Him to leave Jerusalem on His way to Calvary and the cross. And so, today’s message is about this next road we find ourselves on, a road that leads to our own destinies, and that is “Calvary Road.”

After Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples, they left Jerusalem to stay in a very familiar place, a place where they stayed many times before, the Garden of Gethsemane. And it was from the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus entered upon this road that would lead Him to Calvary’s hill and the cross.

Now, before we enter this road for our lives, and before I reveal how we go about doing it, I think it’s important to understand how our redemption is achieved.

The problem humanity has today is that we try to find redemption through our own works and our own righteousness. And these become the driving force behind our decisions and purpose. But what many have failed to realize is that Jesus satisfied our debt and redeemed us.

You see, Redemption Means: “A buying back, a release from sin.” In the original Latin, it means, “To buy back,” such as at a pawn shop when you buy back your property.

As I thought more about this, this is exactly what happened back in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve sold the soul of humanity to Satan’s pawn shop. But what they thought they were going to get was not real. It was a counterfeit. Humanity’s soul was sold for a counterfeit, and the human race has been living with this counterfeit ever since.

But God, came into Satan’s Pawn Shop and bought us back. God said, “These are mine,” or bringing it to something more personal, “Dennis is mine, and I am giving my Son to buy him back, because he doesn’t belong to you Satan.”

We are God’s property and through Jesus’s death, God redeemed us, He bought us and brought us back, where Satan, sin, and death no longer have a hold on our lives.

And so, in our time together, I’d like to lay out not only how Jesus entered onto this road of redemption for our souls, but how we enter this road as well.

Now, we cannot even think of entering this road unless we enter the way Jesus did.

Entrance Begins with Prayer

Once they arrived at Gethsemane, Jesus asked Peter, James, and John to watch and pray as He went further in to pray. Jesus prayed that if it were possible for that which He was going to experience, the mocking, suffering, and the excruciating physical pain of the cross, coupled with the emotional and spiritual pain of being separated from the Father, Jesus prayed if it would pass Him by.

“He said, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.’” (Mark 14:36 NKJV)

You see, Jesus knew what lay before Him long before He entered the Garden of Gethsemane that night. In John’s gospel it says that when they came to arrest Him, Jesus knew exactly why they were there, and what would take place. And while He asked who they were there for, He already knew.

“Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, ‘Whom are you seeking?’” (John 18:4 NKJV)

Knowing what lay before Him, Jesus knew He had to pray to receive guidance from His heavenly Father. But it wasn’t one of those quick in and out prayers we often pray. Rather His prayer was both urgent and intense.

This is seen in that three times he prayed it. And in Luke’s account, it says that Jesus was praying so hard and was in such anguish and agony that His sweat became like great drops of blood, which is an actual medical condition those in the medical field say may be related to a person’s fight or flight response to an extremely stressful and emotional situation.

And while Jesus’s prayer was for the Father to help Him find another way, which is why He said, “If it at all possible,” this was also a prayer for the Father’s will to be accomplished through Him, saying, “Not my will, but Your will be done.”