Holy Week 4: the power of a soul's shape, 30 pieces of silver and how much Jesus is to you

Someone may yet make another movie of the last days of Jesus.

It has all the elements of a great story: there is tension, scheming, gender observations, power struggle, religion, politics, crowds, and of course; a hero.

A silver screen rendering that awakens our imagination and stirs us emotionally may help our faith.

Or maybe not.

The answer lies in the shape of our souls. Is it receptive and open, or has it calcified and hardened?


The final days of Jesus unfolds as an outcome of soul shapes really.

It was the souls of the religious elite, the people, of Pilate and Herod - that shaped how conversations went and how the events moved on one to the next.

If Pilate had a hunger for truth, he may have made a different choice and things would be different.... Equally, it was Jesus' soul - determined to do the Father's will - that led him to clash with the powers and people; and saw him end up on the Cross.

Yes, God's plan to save us would still stand. But the shapes of the souls involved each of them in a specific way. 

Yet this most powerful reality is largely hidden from our view. As a result, we may not notice or pay attention to the state and shape of our souls. Yet it is powerful to turning situations one way or another. Among the disciples, one of them would be instrumentally used by the Enemy against his Rabbi, his teacher, his friend. In his soul, there was a churning of discontent, anger, disappointment with Jesus. He was unable to get Jesus' priority. He had allowed himself to compromise, raitonalising it away... his soul was taking on a shape that would not fit the shape of the Cross.

“Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.                      ~ John 12v5-6

In the end, when Judas' soul was shaped to fit the equivalent of 30 pieces of silver.



I have sadly seen more Christians fight over money than probably anything else.


Maybe we have forgotten Jesus' words; calling us to be mindful of the power of money to dent our souls and recast us in a mould that in the end wouldn't allow us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow -- which means we may well bear the Name and be on a very different path.

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. ~ Matthew 6v24

I have always been intrigued that Jesus singles out Money as the competition for our allegiance, loyalty, and faith.

And if it stays as a cognitive curiosity I am in trouble. I need to hear, seriously hear this words and ask myself the hard questions -

what does money mean to me?
what do I really look to for security?
will I trust God when I am in want?
will I strike out at a brother or sister when I am robbed?

This inner seeing and search will reveal the shape of our souls.

This is the sad commentary of Judas' soul -

"...thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel.." ~ Matthew 27v9

This is it? A man is but thirty pieces of silver? Wouldn't this mean that when we betray our Saviour; that is how much He is worth to us too? All of Judas' dreams, experiences, personal moments with Jesus. All of Jesus' life and message added up to but thirty pieces of silver....which would purchase a small piece of real estate. It is shocking and grievous isn't it?

Our soul shape shows how much Jesus means to us. 

And mind you, it is this not-easily-seen shape that is shaping things up.

.... perhaps this song as you reflect: O Sacred Head Now Wounded {click}

credit: kellylydick

Holy Week 3: the kingdom is in your midst!

I asked a few dear souls what this week, this season means to them:

Holy Week is a yearly time for me to take a journey inward, to let His light give illumination on some area of my life that needs His redemptive love and lift. Last year He whispered, "Choose what gives life.". – Kenny Chee

Over the past few years, I've come to understand and observe Lent as a season of identifying with Jesus who experienced the tension between his humanity and divinity, in seeking to relate with humanity. It is like standing between two mirrors: one reflects my pre-Christ human condition, which from time to time attempts to reach out from the flesh and seize control; and the other reflects my in-Christ condition, which I continue to grow in and into. Lent is thus the remembrance and observance of the preparatory journey in the inner man to the Cross and the Resurrection. - Ronald & Ethel

Holy Week serves as a timely reminder to us to "practice the presence of God" in our daily life. We try to slow things down, de-clutter our routine and be more mindful of God-appointed moments. All this in order to ponder again and to be renewed by what Jesus has done for us on the cross and what he is doing in us along the journey of life. — Aaron & Namiko Lee

Do you see it?

Their responses describe it so well. Holy Week is not just a rolling of the hours for some remembrance on Good Friday and then a trump of smallish victory at Easter service.

But -

with our eyes socked right in front of our skulls, we tend to look ahead and outward. Yet we have another way of seeing; one we need to learn to use and get used to. It is the look inward. This season, this week, we must use this other way of seeing; where we turn our gaze inward - to where the deeper things lie.

If you want to know --

why you react the way you do;
what truly motivates you
what matters to you
what grieves you
what has mastery over you

you need to look within.


The religious elite, the disciples, the crowd; they all looked outward. They set their attention of what Jesus did; and how it benefited or threatened them. They tried to interpret his actions, maybe even hoped to crack the code so they can do likewise; or otherwise ensure they don't lose out on the miraculous and the action they hope would come when Jesus stands down the Roman powers and ushers in God's kingdom.

So many missed it.

"The Kingdom is in your midst!", Jesus had pronounced.

How would you respond if you were a humble bread maker whose earnings were meagre, or wife to a fisherman who comes home each evening smelling of sea and fish? Would you sneer if you were an up-and-coming young rabbi who has been praised and selected to mingle with the religious big wigs?

We reason it: why, the King is walking about! The potential for the kingdom is always at hand.

But God is not looking for us to explain anything; and of course most of the time our reasoning is meant to convince ourselves!

Of course there have been miracles. Of course the teaching is enrapturing. It still is today. But we can - like the crowds and the leaders; even the disciples - still sort of miss it. 

Jesus was inviting them, and us today; to consider Him as-the-king right in the middle of not-quite-obviously-Kingdom. Jesus was inviting them, and us today; to look into our hearts and find that the Kingdom is what we long for: peace, rule, stability, kindness, compassion, one-ness, purpose...

And as we look, really look. we may find that our Kingdom notions are hazy. We will most certainly with honesty, see that our longing for the Kingdom is being challenged and perhaps undermined by other loves and loyalties.

This week is our appointed time to lean into our Kingdom longings, to feel deeply and really pay attention. 

Here in Singapore, we just lost a father to our nation. With the outpouring of grief and the demonstrations of consideration; we are feeling the rise of a new day. Like the crowds in Jerusalem; we mutter softly, "what if..".  But "what if's" never brought in anything solidly new.

In fact, the crowd, through bribery, coercion and the failures of individual hearts in the end turned on the One they had hoped would bring in the new day - because - they would not identify that God's kingdom must come by God's ways.

A new day for our own lives, families, and for Singapore won't come any other way; for God's ways are unchanging as they are rooted in His character.

If we want a new day to come, we want the kingdom of joy and peace; then we must accept that it comes by the way of the Dolorosa - the long road of cross-bearing and finally, death.

Bonhoeffer, the Kingdom dreamer who would pay for his dream with his life said,

"When Christ bids you come, he bids you come to die.".

A few years ago I began a habit of wearing black and being plain on Good Friday. I mourn not for Christ; for He is risen, but for myself. I am a reluctant die-er. I mourn how my dying is slow. I cling to a false life easily. It sounds crazy to stay hooked to a limited tank of oxygen when one is being invited to a clean, oxygenated garden of delights. But this is me. I am guessing this is you too some days, many days. So I mourn and repent.

But every time, I see that I am even more an eager live-er. I want to really live! So -- I am willing to die.


The kingdom of God, like God himself, is hard for us to get.
We won't quite grasp it with those eyes looking outward.
We need to look within.

And we shall find it lives there, brilliant and dazzling, enthralling and absorbing; and it is pulsing with Life. If we care to open our hearts to others and really receive; we find that it is alive and growing in the spaces between us, binding us to each other.

When we touch it, the Life flows into us and renews us. We get up another day and fight on, live on, laugh on, dream on -- as the Kingdom takes shape in, through and beyond us.

and perhaps this old, meaningfully-worded song: Jesus, God's righteousness revealed {click} as you look inward for a while.

Holy Week 2: who do you think you are?

I remember my late father. He who went to school (before he got kicked out for playing the fool too much) under the British... he used to write the most formal notes for us at times, such as this:

To whom it may concern,
Father is out. The water in the kettle is boiled.

This is the language he knew when it comes to writing. We found it hilarious and laughed secretly behind his back.

Today as Jesus enters and walks around the temple area, a group of rulers+teachers+elders (yes, the power religious triad combo of the day) comes up to him, couches their sneering in polite-sounding words, 

"Tell us, by what authority you are doing these things..Who gave you this authority?" {Luke 20} -- 

when what they meant was no less: 

"Who the heck do you think you are? Tell us the true source of your power!".

Over the years, I have developed very mixed feelings towards these religious leaders. As a young believer, it was at first easy to just cast them as the 'bad guys'. Later they would be 'thick', 'proud', 'stubborn', 'political', 'insecure'....

The reason the feelings became mixed is simple: I found all those same words I describe them with; many insinuated through the sermons we hear -- I found I could describe myself the same way. I was dense, proud, stubborn, insecure and more. I remember railing at God in a season of painful confusion, "who do you think you are?!". I could not make sense of what was happening and what God was up to.

God is not easy to get.

In fact, Jesus cleverly dodges their question. There are times God doesn't answer us because we are not asking the right questions. He finds it needful to use His silence to develop is us a finer-tuned hearing.

With the religious powerhouses still in audience, Jesus goes on to tell an evocative story. It's a story we can all get - as long as the story it is about 'others'.  "May this never be!" we would have echoed with the listeners. How can the tenants be so ungrateful and downright evil to ignore the rightful  of the owner; to the extent of hoping to inherit the land by killing his son?!

 Jesus looks at them directly and counter-warns them of the grave danger they are in; for they are about to do the exact thing they just deplored:

"The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.
Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on who it falls will be crushed."

These are words God gave to Isaiah {see chap 8} the prophet in a revelation of who He is: I am a God you cannot easily get people. Some of you will stumble so bad, you will be so challenged... some of you will not survive a true encounter with God. Hard, harsh words.

Religious pedigree and legacy will not ensure anything. Crushed and shattered - those who refuse God's self-revelation will be swept off - that's the sense in the word used.

God endures our questions and challenges. But He turns and questions us.

The most classic example we have of this is found in the story of Job. The point of that story? God doesn't owe us an answer. We owe him an accounting.

And this week, if instead of counting on our filthy rags-righteousness, we would ask to see God afresh... gazing on God-condensed/interpreted/simplified in Jesus - we would see God wants to deal with the accounts. In the story Jesus told, God sent prophets and finally His own Son!

It is a clear word of warning to the religious elite that they were in danger of losing what they considered their inalienable right to God's favour. They get it; but instead of repentance, they looked for a way to arrest him.

They get it but they don't - because they would not accept this lowly carpenter-trained leader of a ragamuffin group to be anymore than they would allow him to be. Jesus simply did not match their expectations. Jesus did not fit their frame of reference.

Jesus was - not - like them.

Who do you think Jesus is, really?

Does He surprise, perhaps offend you? Did you feel he could have handled your situation differently, better?


Perhaps like me, you may find as you imagine yourself there, you too would find the story of injustice unbearable and cry out too, "may this never be!". Then Jesus asks you to recall the words of Isaiah - and you realise the story is a warning of the hypocrisy and hardness of our hearts: we don't really want God's justice; what we want is His favour -- on.us. And deep in the recesses of our hearts is that creeper of self-righteousness that quickly clings and wraps around people and situations... a dangerous weed that turns on its host with the venom of self-condemnation as easily as it clouds our hearts with judgmentalism.

The heresy of Grace is that we still link it with a sense of being-deserving. So those who are not so blessed are therefore not-so-deserving.

Would you allow yourself to break over your inability to grasp this God-man, and in your breaking and spiritual poverty open up fresh spaces for God to enter in, this week?

Jesus did not stop with this one story. He persisted. He told three more parables, answered more questions and finally in a clear demonstration of his sorrow over their coming destruction, wept over Jerusalem.

God coaxes, works wonders, enthralls... and weeps.

But He is the capstone. His heart breaks for us. Our response is to let ourselves be broken as we encounter Him. May we find him our sanctuary - in a deeper sense this week.

"The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
he is the one you are to fear,
he is the one you are to dread,
and he will be a sanctuary; ...
a stone
a trap and a snare." ~ Isaiah 8v13-14