Teaching Tuesday

Montana Bible College Dean of Students & Discipleship Carter Knight composed a series of short devotionals for Holy Week. We hope they encourage you and help prepare your heart for worshiping our risen Savior! 

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

- Matthew 23:1-4

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 

- Matthew 23:27-28

With his whole body, the Lord Jesus is our burden-bearer. He is not like a scribe who spends his life hypocritically scribbling out the sacred Scriptures without obeying them with his life. He is not like a Pharisee who preaches God's law but does not practice the weightier matters of godliness. No, Jesus lifts up the weight of his own instruction and shoulders the load of his own teachings. He is the porter of all God's promises as well as the carrier of all God's commands. For this reason, Jesus’ teachings weigh lightly on the heavy-hearted, and do not outweigh what the weak and weary may bear.

With his whole soul, Jesus bears our burdens. He descends lower than the downcast soul and lifts from below the greatest sorrows. Who has known grief and sorrow as our God and Savior Jesus Christ? By the incarnation, he chose to become a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Indeed, Jesus bore our burdens in his body and soul. He bore them as he carried the cross to Calvary. He lifted our burdens even while his hands and feet were nailed to the cross. He carried our burdens even when he himself was carried to the tomb. Jesus was crushed underneath our guilt and shame, the weight of which exceeds the cross he carried and the stone rolled in front of his tomb.

This burden-bearing ministry is what makes Jesus beautiful on the inside and out.

Therefore, his body did not decompose or see corruption in the tomb. He did not see corruption because he is the Holy One. No one taught with authority as he did or did the works of God as he did. Jesus’ tomb is not filled with dead bones and uncleanness because his heart is full of righteous love. Jesus’ tomb is empty because his soul is empty of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

As we consider the righteous perfection of Christ, let him empty out our inward grave of lawlessness. Let him speak, “Come out!” to our tomb of dry-boned hypocrisy. Hear his promise: he will unburden us from the lid of shame’s sepulcher and unbind us from guilt’s graveclothes. With his own nail pierced hands he will lift that lifeless lid of lies and carry away those unclean clothes of conceit. Then let Christ, risen and reigning in his uncorrupted and incorruptible body, breathe his new life into us. Do not wonder if these bones may live. Hear the voice of our Creator and Redeemer, “Dry bones, arise!”