The Five Journeys of Jesus
As long as time and space exist, everything and everyone is on a journey. Our earth revolves around the sun at a speed of about a million kms an hour! Our solar system rotates within our Milky Way galaxy at a speed of about 2 million kms an hour! The God who created our universe in its unfathomable size and speeds, is the same God who created humankind and has purposely vested great interest and love in us. The sermon on the Five Journeys of Jesus highlights the most pivotal intervention of God in human history. Read on. May this give you insight and hope!
The First Journey of Jesus — from heaven to earth
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life.” Jesus was in heaven. The Word is Jesus Christ, and we read that he was the agent of creation!
Hebrews 1:1-3 “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed to be the heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being sustaining all things by his power.”
The Trinity is a profound mystery: One God, three persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ predates the universe as clearly stated in these two verses.
From the time that God created human kind we know the God has been testing hearts, watching what humankind does for good or for bad:
Psalm 12:2 “The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
What did God see? He saw the people of this earth choosing their own way, rejecting the purpose for which they were created, breaking faith with God and with each other: Sin corrupting people and sinful people corrupting the created order…destruction and death.
Due to our human willfulness to leave God’s purposes for our lives, God could have just cancelled the whole deal and tossed our minuscule planet to burn up in the sun. But he didn’t!
God messaged Mary in Luke 1:35 “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”
God extended his love to us in a very practical way:
John 3:16 “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal live. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
Philippians 2:5-8 “Jesus was in very nature God, but did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself.”
The God who created billions of galaxies each of which contain billions of stars, is the same God who chose to leave the glory of heaven, squeeze himself into a body like ours in order to show the quintessence of his love with a view to rescue us from a sure self-destruction and darkness!
The Second Journey of Jesus — from Bethlehem to the Cross
God did not short-circuit his incarnation, taking on our form. He embraced the fullness of our humanity. Why? He took on our form because without the identification with us, he could not have been the perfect sacrifice to pay the consequences of our sin that was our due.
Jesus suffered danger, temptation from Satan, threats, mocking, fatigue, false accusations. Despite these, he ministered graciously to hurting people, he taught, he healed, he did miracles to show the glory of God, he brought light and hope to a people living in spiritual darkness.
Jesus never deflected from his ultimate purpose: the Cross. In the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed: John 12:27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from his hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
Jesus, in prayer, experienced unimaginable stress for he sweat drops of blood. Was he stressing over the agonies of crucifixion? Perhaps that was part of it. But there was a superlative stress that he would be facing on our behalf: the bearing of our sins on himself and having the judgment of God fall on him…on our behalf!
The end of the second journey was the Cross. He reached his destination and his purpose. He then cried out, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” and “It is finished”. The ultimate sacrifice, and only sacrifice that would qualify to redeem us from an eternal death, was Jesus himself.
Jesus’ second journey made no sense from a human perspective: he left the glories of heaven, to assume our human form. He became thirsty and hungry. He faced persecution, jeering, betrayal and death. But it was the culmination of a long awaited promise of God to extend love and redemption to a broken word. Salvation, through the Cross of Christ was God’s big idea conceived in love.
The Third Journey of Jesus — From the Cross to the Grave
Apostle’s Creed states: “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried: he descended to hell.” What? Jesus in hell? As Jesus took the full weight of our sin upon himself. The Bible says he was “made sin for us” he experienced the full judgment of God, separation from God the Father There is mystery in those words. The essence of hell is separation from God, alienation from God. Jesus experienced that unfathomable agony on the Cross, separation from the heavenly Father….
The ceremonial sacrifices of animals as in the Old Testament could not take away Sin nor purify the sinner. Jesus came to do what no-one else and no animal sacrifice could do: he died on the cross experiencing the death that we were destined for and opened a door into a life forever with God which is promised to those of us who embrace Jesus. On the Cross, Jesus experienced the full force of God’s judgment for our sin, not his own sin because he was without sin. And he cried in anguish, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That was hell! Why? So that we would not have to experience the eternal hell of separation from God.
1 Peter 2:24. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed”
2 Cor. 8:9 “For you know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor so that we, through his poverty might become rich.” Jesus paid our debt; he died to “cover the cost” for our forgiveness.
To qualify for that incredible gift of God, we must make it our own and embrace the One who made it possible for us to have it at great cost! The gift of salvation is , in fact, Jesus Christ himself who is our advocate.
Jesus’ third journey lasted only three days but was the most devastating and shattering journey that anyone has ever taken or will take. And it was for us!
Jesus fourth journey — from the grave to the sky
If Jesus had remained dead and putrefied in the grave, he would have been write-off as just another activist martyr. The pivotal point in all of human history is not the Cross, nor the Grave but the resurrection of Jesus Christ! The proofs are incontrovertible. The resurrected Christ was seen by the disciples and hundreds of people. Read the record! Jesus fourth journey took him to the sky, back to heaven where he started: Acts 1:6-11. The disciples witnessed the Ascension.
So where is Jesus now and what is he doing?
Hebrews 4: 14-16 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Jesus is our ever-living, ever constant high priest who is always approachable by his children of faith. (cf. John 1:12)
But there is more! He did not abandon us…but is with us through the magnificence of the Holy Spirit that he promised us: John 14:25-27 “All this I have spoken to you while I am with you. But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of every thing I have said to you. Peace I leave with you… Physically Jesus was confined to Palestine but now, through his Holy Spirit, he resides in lives around the entire world—in those who welcome him into their lives.
1 Peter 1:3-5 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”
The Fifth Journey of Jesus — yet to come!
The fifth journey is a journey that Jesus will take but has not yet taken. John 14:1-4 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” Jesus promises to prepare a place for us and that he will come back and take us to be with him.
1 Thessalonians 4: 16-18 “for the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”
John 11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” There is a future for those who become children of God through faith. Matt. 25:31-34 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory , and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him…[in judgment]” Jesus told us about his fifth journey: “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”
These are the five journeys of Jesus Christ: four finished, one yet to come!
The journeys of Jesus are true and they are a powerful reminder that we are important to God!
Romans 8:31 “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?…. Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
Hebrews 12:1-2 “…Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
God plotted out five journeys for our sake. He did it in love. He did so not only to enrich our lives on the journey here but provided for us the hope of a destination that is glorious. It is our choice to accept Jesus and his gift or to simply walk on in our own cognizance and miss out on something of inestimable value.
The choices we make in the, Here and Now, will determine what happens to us in the, There and Then, before a holy God. Are we ready to meet Him either by death or his second arrival?
John K
