Matthew: Preparing our Hearts for a Holy Remembrance

Matthew 26.1-16: As we continue in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus announces to His disciples that He will soon be crucified. We see in the text today the preparing for Jesus’ death which is part of God’s providential plan. As we see the preparation for His death we see Jesus’ acceptance of God’s plan, the hateful rejection of Israel’s leaders, the beautiful worship of one and the crushing betrayal of another. As we get prepared this Sunday to look at the events surrounding the death of Jesus, we also prepare our hearts for the season of Advent. This season I pray we will see that His birth and His death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and the morning of one and the same day. From the crèche (cradle) to the cross is an inseparable line. Christmas only points forward to Good Friday and Easter. It can have no meaning apart from that, where the Son of God displayed his glory by his death (John Donne, The Book of Uncommon Prayers). So, may we be prepared today for the coming season with a holy remembrance of the coming of Christ not just to the cradle, but to the cross.