March 2026 Message From Pastor Mike “On The Way To The Cross”

Easter will be the first Sunday of April. But
let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For centuries,
Christians have marked the weeks leading up to the
celebration of Jesus’ resurrection by remembering
His journey to the cross. Before He could rise
again, Jesus had to die, and before we can rejoice
on Easter, we need to walk with Him toward His
suffering and death.

On church calendars, this is the season of
Lent, a time of repentance, fasting and spiritual
contemplation leading up to Good Friday, the day
we remember Jesus’ death. Some believers make
sacrifices during Lent, denying themselves something
to commemorate Jesus’ great sacrifice. Some
follow Bible reading plans that lead them through
Jesus’ final days on the way to the cross.
I hope you find special ways of marking
this season of preparation. On Sundays during
March, I will continue preaching from Luke, focusing
on what Jesus did and taught as He neared the
cross.

One of the most riveting stories in the Bible
comes in Luke 22:39-46 as Jesus prays on the
Mount of Olives just prior to being arrested. Other
gospel accounts tell us He prayed in a place known
as the Garden of Gethsemane, and Luke says this
was a “usual” place for Jesus to go with the disciples.
Going off by Himself, Jesus “knelt down and
prayed.”

What do you think about Jesus’ posture of
prayer? Why did He kneel down? This story, perhaps
more than any other gospel passage, confronts
us with the reality of Jesus’ human nature. Yes,
Jeus is the Son of God through whom the world
was created. He is the eternally-living, co-equal
second person of the divine Trinity, the Son alongside
the Father and the Holy Spirit. But during His
time on earth and as He prayed in the Garden, Jesus
was also fully human. He knelt in prayer out of
reverence for His Father whom He loved and
obeyed.

He prayed from His human heart, with all
the honest emotions of a real person, “Father, if
you are willing, take this cup from me.” It was a
plea to spare Him from suffering and death. Jesus
would soon experience the humiliation of being
mocked and stripped naked, the pain of being beaten
by Roman soldiers and having a crown of thorns
cut into His scalp, the agony of having nails driven
through His wrists and ankles, and the torment of
slowly suffocating under His own weight while
hanging on a cross of wood. He know what was
coming, and He asked to be spared from it, just as
we might plead for mercy.

In that moment of prayer, as Jesus struggled
against the suffering He had to endure to fulfill His
mission of salvation, He then prayed, “Yet not my
will, but yours be done.” It is the most consequential
prayer ever uttered. Despite how He felt in His
human heart, mind and body, Jesus steadfastly
knelt down in obedience before His Father’s will.
Just as He had taught His followers to pray “Thy
will be done,” now Jeus was inviting God to accomplish
through Him what had been planned and
prophesied for thousands of years.
Jesus submitted Himself to the cross. He
chose it in obedience to God the Father and out of
love for you and me.

As Jesus prayed, “his sweat was like drops
of blood.” Such was His anguish, such was His determination
to suffer and die for the sins of the
world.
As you walk through these days, drawing
closer to Good Friday, take time to enter into Jesus’
story. Listen to Him in the Upper Room.
Watch Him in the Garden. Go with Him toward
Golgotha. Kneel down before your Savior in humble
faith and grateful praise.