Anchormen Ep30 Holy Week with Jim Cross Pt.1

We enter Holy Week here at the Upper room where the Anchormen meet each week to share and worship, learn and grow. 

This week we'd like to welcome our dear friend Jim (JIMBO) Cross into the recording studio as we discuss the week preceding the most pivotal week in our walk with Christ. Without the death and resurrection of Jesus, we would have no hope at all and nothing to look forward to and live our lives for. 

He provided it all for us.

This week we will be discussing events from Palm Sunday, Turning of the tables in the temple, the Last Supper and even the night Jesus was handed over to the Roman guards by the disciple who betrayed Jesus after following Him for three years. 

Thank you for joining us and you can reach out any time at our website or on your favorite podcast platforms.

Reach out to the Anchormen by emailing us at anchoredbygrace@duck.com.

Listen or share our website to help spread the good news of being Anchored by Grace

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

In our walk with God, we often experience moments when our faith is tested. It's in these times that we truly discover what it means to be anchored in faith. Our faith is like a sturdy ship anchored in the harbor. It keeps us grounded when the waves of life toss us around. When we lean on God in his word, we find the strength of persevere and trust in his plans. The anchormen remind us weakly that Jesus is our anchor, providing stability and assurance in the midst of our certainty. Together, let's dive deeper into the powerful words that encourage us to hold fast to the faith of Jesus almost and not rely on good words to be right. Come on now, you watched I know you watched some Flintstones. Oh no, I was no Flintstones. The grand Kooba blogs. Royal water buffaloes.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I got some of them uh honeymooners. Hold on my TV.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

You're gonna do the moon. My favorite was this dog right here.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Oh jeez, naughtin. Hey naughtin. Alice. Hey rubby boy.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

I appreciate y'all thinking on me.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Oh we're glad that you accepted.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Welcome to Anchorman Anchored by Grace. This is our next episode on our podcast. I see Bob Clark's in the house. I hear Bob Clark.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

How are you, my brother? Alright. You missed the wreck, huh? Did you get in the wreck? No, we were eating that bone of beef. Oh man. Where was the wreck at? Right down here in the intersection, Scary.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I gotta go look at the train button. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Glass was everywhere. I would have been a criminal. I could have gone and pulled a job because all the police was gone. Police.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Perfect thing to do on Easter weekend. Pull the job. I've got three. Okay, just a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

I'm gonna do my own thing. Yeah. Well, gosh. Uh today we got Bob, Todd, and myself here. We're uh being raced and blessed by the presence of Jim Cross. He decided he's gonna come out and join us today. He was invited to speak on uh Holy Week. We're gonna talk a little bit about Holy Week. Holy Well, guys, welcome. Welcome to our podcast. Uh good to have you here, Jim. Glad you could make it.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

I'm glad you asked me. I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Yeah, so our casual conversation is just gonna be, like I said, around uh around Holy Week. And some of the things that you know we did on Holy Week, we do on Holy Week are traditions. Some of the the things that uh we practice on Holy Week are I don't know, and maybe they're controversial, maybe they're not. I don't know. We're here to discuss. So let's see. Who wants to take you don't have to follow this, you know, this little message. But what are your you know, your first thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, you and I talked about this a little bit, John, in anticipation of this. And um, it's just I I think it was a week full of symbolic things that Jesus did and said and was involved in all the while his followers, his disciples, had no idea that a week later he was going to be on the cross. You know, he had warned them and talked about it, but they were still, you know, he's talking in parables still for them. So a lot of things a lot of happen, a lot happened between Palm Sunday and and the following Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Well, and a lot happened leading up to Palm Sunday. For sure. That's that's why he's coming into Jerusalem, he's coming into the city, you know, he had a donkey, and he's you know, there's there's so many details that happen biblically speaking.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah, the significance of the donkey, but just occult, but just his presence.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Everyone thought, here's our messiah, and they all believed in him as our messiah, and and he's gonna say Messiah saving us from Rome, saving us from Roman rule, exactly not doing what he came to do and what he did it for.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Because they didn't really grasp that understanding, they didn't that the real reason why Jesus was there, you know, and he went from the parade to the temple to, you know, there were things symbolically that he did, one thing after another, that were causing a lot of confusion, and and some were seeing it as okay, this is the fulfillment of something. Right, right. And non-Jews were thinking, what's he doing? Why is he going here? Why is he angry at the temple? Why is he doing that?

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Well, even the I I would imagine at that time, even the Pharisees were probably, what's going on? Oh, they were for sure scared because they were scared because he's yeah, everyone's coming out and they're praising him and they're a parade in town for another guy.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Now I was doing a little bit of looking at this. Jim, tell me what you what you think about the his his entry into the city. He's on a donkey. There's people that put their the I guess the apostles put their coats on the donkey. Now, Matthew, I read.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Some put it on the ground.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

On the ground, too. People put them on the ground. But the I think the apostles put their coats on the donkeys. Now, Matthew, I read, it was the only book of the four gospels that mentioned a colt and a and a foe. I mean, the the mother and the and the baby, donkey. There was two. Neither one of the other three don't mention it. But there was two donkeys.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Yeah, I'm looking at John, it says Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it as it is written, do not be afraid, daughter Zion. See your king is coming seated on a donkey's cult.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

That was from uh John 12. John 12. Now that in is there a is there a reference in there to the Old Testament, how it uh it pointed to that? It was prophesied.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Uh let's see here. Well, it says, uh let's see, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, blessed is the king of Israel. Jesus found the young donkey and sat on it as it is written. Okay. So that's all it says, as it was written, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:43

It doesn't have the reference. It was Old Testament reference. It was Old Testament prophesied, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, and I heard, and I was reading that Matthew is the only gospel that pointed to two animals. Uh, because Jesus said in Matthew, there's going to be a donkey and a cult. Bring them and untie them and bring them. But the other three gospels don't mention two animals. And the reason being they said it wasn't that they were trying to discredit or be controversial, but Matthew was the only eyewitness. And he's the one that witnessed two animals, and all the other ones weren't eyewitnesses.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

So they were recounting something they were told but didn't experience. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Well that was an interesting fact that I was reading today about that, you know. Um Jim, how do you feel? What's on a Palm Sunday? How's what was your as you grew up uh what was your feeling about Palm Sunday?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

I grew up without all that. I was a kid living in Ohio. Both my parents were dead by the time I was eleven, and I didn't get any now. My mother, take that back, she would take me to church, so I knew who God was, I knew who Jesus was, Holy Spirit. I knew there were three of 'em. I knew that, so uh, but I never really got any uh exposure until I came out to Indiana and lived with my oldest half-sister.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

What age were you then?

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Eleven.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

So what was your your first recollection of hearing about Palm Sunday?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

I really don't remember my first recollection of the uh of the day itself. Um what's your first impression of Palm Sunday? Okay. I think about that, and I think about Jesus riding on the donkey and the crowds just pushing against each other. There are thousands of them. And they're all trying to get a look at him, and they're all wondering what these apostles are up to putting their coats down and their uh and the heat. That's a warm climate over there in that country, and it's dry, so the dust would have been horrendous. Uh, and people would be, you know, they'd be right in all of it. They're dying to see, and some of the people knew who he was, some of the people had experience with him. He had healed some of those. Absolutely, yeah, you're right. And so it's like, you know, that when I think about Palm Sunday, that's kind of what I think about.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

That I I kind of wonder, even they call we call it Palm Sunday. Uh it was never officially called Palm Sunday in the in the Bible. It was just it's just a triumphant entry. It was never called Palm Sunday. So Palm Sunday is a man-made description.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

A description. Yeah. And I think that people held palms to to hail them as a.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Well, and there's another good question. Were there palm trees in in that part of the world?

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Yeah. Well, there aren't any here in Velpo, and the churches get them.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Well, they they ship them from Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

You know, and a palm, uh, a branch might not necessarily have been that type of tree. Exactly, it might not have been a palm tree.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Might have been descriptive. Yeah. So and that's another thing. It never says that there was palm branches put down, was there? Or did it say branches, trees, trees?

SPEAKER_03 12:03

Only what I remember seeing is a fig, fig tree, fig leaves.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

And that's the one that he curses. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah, exactly. Now, why did he do that?

unknown 12:15

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

What is the significance of that? There's a sermons. Do you know the sermon behind that? I don't know sermons.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

Let me do this. Let me read this scripture while he looks that up. Let me read the scripture that you were referencing, John, okay? Yeah. So this is Jesus speaking now. This is red letters.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

And what book is this you're in?

SPEAKER_03 12:36

The one that you talked about, Matthew 21? Right. It says, Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Right. And one of the descriptions I had read when I was reading that article said it wasn't like Jesus was somebody in a circus balancing on two horses or two donkeys at the same time. He just rode one. It was just he rode one and the other one was there because Matthew eyewitnessed it. And he said, Go get that donkey, and he was there.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

My notes indicate riding a donkey fulfilled Zechariah 9. Zachariah. Okay. Yeah. Chapter 9, verse 9. Okay. The arrival of the true king. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

And I I understood that to uh one thing I was thinking of was it said Jesus sat on the colt and he didn't actually ride it.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, he sat side saddle. What we call side saddle is just the description. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

And one of the significant things, you and I talked about this earlier in the week, that on the back of a colt. Have you ever seen that picture? On the back of a colt, there's a cross on his back. Have you ever seen that picture?

SPEAKER_00 14:04

No.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Okay. I I sent it to my sister earlier, and there's a picture of the donkey with a colt. Oh on the colt. It's on my phone. Phone I'm being used. But yeah, there was a picture on the back of a donkey. When you're sitting on the donkey, there's a there's actually a cross on its back. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

So you're saying each donkey has that? Donkey supernaturally imposed.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

No, the cult the cult has that. Every donkey has that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

I see. Yeah. It's a natural feature of its rear.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yes, yes. That's why wow, that was amazing. All donkeys have that, huh? I think cults do. I think as they grow older, I think it might fade. But I think the colts have that.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Huh. Yeah. Let me see that, man. I can't see that far away. I can barely see it all. Well, I'll be darned. That they was.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I was just saying, following the the the the ride into Jerusalem on the donkey, you know, is gee the next description is Jesus going into the temple. That's the next day. Next day.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Yeah, that's the that's uh holy Monday, if I'm correct.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah. And then the fig tree that we talked about was after that. Right. And the fig tree was it says wasn't random irritate irritation, it was a living parable. Cursing the fruitless tree, Jesus pictured Israel's temple-centered system that had leaves, which are an indication of activity, but no fruit, which is faith.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

So think about think about the circumstances leading up to that incident. I mean, the cleansing of the temple. Jesus went and cleared cleared the temple. That was on Monday. So Sunday, something happened on Sunday, something happened on Monday. There was significant things that happened on Monday. But can't I can't imagine what would have been going on the rest of the day Sunday or the rest of the day Monday, other than the things that we know? And somewhere in the book of John, it said there's so many things that could have been written that there's not enough pages.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah, that's the final one of the final verses in John.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Right. And it says, so there's so much more that happened that we'd never wrote. Could you imagine all the writing all the detail down what happened each day living with Jesus?

SPEAKER_01 16:17

And and for them to try to put all these things together. Why is he calling for a cult? Why is he going to the temple? Why is he acting like that in the temple? Right. Why is he cursing a fig tree? What's the relevance of that? You know? Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah, it says here, um, the cleansing of the temple targeted a specific court. Jesus disrupted commerce in the court of the Gentiles. Um, and let's see, and one the one space where the nations could draw near. He wasn't just angry at greed, he was the he was defending God's global plan to include Gentiles. That lines up with the new covenant's inclusion of all nations. So he was cleansing the temple, clearing the way for him. This is not uh a place for thieves and for buying and selling. And that was Monday. Until now, Tuesday goes into what what you were talking about, Bob. Um goes into the the fig tree. Yeah. He's walking with his apostles. Where was he going? He was going to the temple. Wasn't he to didn't he hear the people? He left the temple. He left the temple. He was on his way to the temple. Because on the way back from the temple, they noticed that it was different. The tree had died. The tree had died, yeah. A lot of things going on, but there was no there was no faith. Yeah. There was a lot of fruit happening, but no faith. Okay, that makes sense. Did that explain? Did that answer your question? Because you were mentioning you that you were wondering the significance of that. Hog you're being quiet back then.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

I'm just thinking that today's the Last Supper.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Today would have been Monday, Thursday. Would have been the last supper day.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Think about that too. Jesus invites all the uh apostles there, and they don't know if it's just another night. And then the first thing he does is washes their feet, and you know, he does all these ceremonial things with them, and he he starts getting into the seriousness of the night, and he starts questioning, you know, that's when uh Judas, he said, one of you will, and you know, so he's he's going through all these things that he know are gonna happen at the Last Supper, where the disciples are like, Last supper, what what you know they didn't see it that way because it was just another meal with Jesus, right? But as he got through the end of the day, and then he went out to Gethsemane, they're like, There's something more going on here.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

So when you see a lot of pictures, yeah, we're there all together, they did not eat at the table, they reclined on the floor. Yeah, they didn't have chairs, and they did not eat at that table like you see so many pictures.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Yeah, well, you've even seen that in the chosen series. You see them sitting at a table, they weren't sitting at a table.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

And he told them to what I wash your feet, you should wash other each other's feet and others' feet, you know, as an act of service, yeah, yeah, and and reverence. So it was pretty cool how he was teaching them lessons throughout that whole time.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yeah, but they thought he was just clean and dirty feet. They did not get the significance of it.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

And one of the statements that he made, I think, in there was something about um I came into this house and you weren't there with nobody washing my feet.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

And they usually have a servant washing feet. So he took the role of a servant and washed everybody's feet.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Right. He was showing servant leadership.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yep, yep. Now that that was, you know, I don't know. Have you guys ever experienced that uh in a service? So feet washing? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

So I did twice at St. Paul once the pastor was going around, I think it was around Easter, and he picked three people and he came and did wash my feet. And it's very uh humbling. Yes, you know, because you're thinking, my feet, my socks, you know, and and uh the other time was that we have this thing called uh uh Christ renews his parish, which is similar to what Ron talks about as the banquet that all of you you know have gone to. Right. They still do that, yeah, and they still do he so at at the Christ renews his parish, Father Joe the pastor, washed our feet, and again, it's very, very humbling experience.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah, I knew him at the prison. Okay. He used to come up there on uh Sunday night, and I'd be on duty at the gate and I'd have to frisk him, go through all his stuff, and and uh yeah, Father Joe. Todd, you said you experienced that before?

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Yeah, at uh Belpo Nas um they had stuff during Holy Week where they had, I don't know, maybe ten different stations set up where you could just go experience. Some were just praying, some were lighting a candle, just different things, and uh one of them was washing feet.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Yeah, I was in a service uh at Cornerstone Church down in uh Cutz one Easter week. I was down there and they had a foot washing service. It was humbling, like you said, very good, humble, humbling experience. Yeah, really is. And he said, you know, and I nobody had any idea this was gonna happen. And uh Pastor Berkey was down there and he says, we're gonna have to the only way that I'd be able to do that is if I had a hose.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Hose with a trigger on it. I ain't washing nobody's dark feet.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Tom would have a pair of heavy gloves on and a mask. And a mask. Jesus Once again, we're at the end of part one of Of Holy Week. I want to thank Jim Cross for joining Bob and Todd and myself. And you thank you also for listening to part one of Holy Week from Anchorman Anchored by Grace. Thank you for listening to Anchorman Anchored by Grace podcast. Please share, like, and listen each week right here on our website or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Subscribe to our podcast and never miss a new episode. Reach out to us at AnchoredBy Grace at Duck.com. Thank you again from John, Bob, and Todd, your anchormen, Anchored by Grace.