My Redeemer Liveth

by  DR. WESLEY A. SWIFT----4-2-61

Upon this resurrection day, we think concerning the great events in the life of The Messiah--Jesus the Christ.  And also it is important that we keep alive in our thinking the great pageantry in that hour, as well as the mighty and Majestic events that transpired.

It is more than a discussion of theology.  It is a matter of History.  It is an understanding of events that had taken place.

On Good Friday evening we discussed the plans for the Coronation of Christ that had preceded by one week, the day we now celebrate as HIS RESURRECTION.  The organization of the many who wanted to Crown the Christ,---KING,---from soldiers of the army of Barabbas, who had gathered his Essene company to become the Army of the Christ, to the Essene Priesthood who had prepared the Crown for the Christ and also had prepared the Chalice and the cup for they were warned by John the Baptist--earlier, as he told them that at this time The Messiah would take the Chalice and the cup---all the followers were prepared for what ever was to come.----We reviewed on Good Friday the events that surrounded that drama in the Garden of Gethsemane.

For one moment I would have you go back to that event in the Garden.  For except you understand what took place in the Garden of Gethsemane, you have not caught the vastness of --- the joy of this date.

When the Christ took the Chalice on the day the would have crowned Him King,--- this Chalice which had been prepared by the instigation of Joseph of Arimathea--this chalice which was beautifully prepared and also the outer cup--with the images of Christ and His disciples,--this Chalice which had been prepared because there was an understanding that HE might take the Chalice instead of the Crown.---So, understand these words that The Messiah spoke on that Day that they offered Him the Crown:---

"Altho I am your King, and it is My right to reign, yet I will not rule over an Empire of slaves, a people bound and who have no freedom.  Therefore I must keep My covenant and My promise that I made.  I must be the Lamb slain from the foundation of creation.  I must take My cup, the cup of My Priesthood, and your deliverance.  But the day shall come when I shall take the Crown.  And in that day the Kingdom will not be delivered to the Jews."

These words were to be Historic.  And the Christ repeated them during the events of the next few days.  When Jesus took the cup and handed it to Andrew, then many thought, their hope of the Messiah taking His Kingdom was to be postponed.  So they were wondering what would be His final decision and what would He do?

In those hours after He had partaken of the Last Supper with His disciples, in the upper room, ---  and remember that here at this Last Supper the Chalice and cup had been used and here the Messiah had broken bread with His disciples and He had shared with them the bread and the wine--- the unction of His spirit consecrating it to them when He said:--'This is My body and this is My blood.'---and thus He gave to them the fellowship of His suffering.  But---a great many people have little understood the great mystery of what Paul said:--'If we partake of the fellowship of His suffering, we shall know the power of His resurrection.'

Now there are none within this room who could partake of the fellowship of His suffering if they had to endure His Cross.  For there are none who could have taken the cup that first preceded it.  But having under the symbol of His own communion, consecrated by the unction of His own spirit, you have received many times, the fellowship of His own suffering and the assurance that comes with it--of the power of His resurrection.  The disciples had put their hands with HIM into the cup, the very dish from which He ate.  And He had told them that one of them would betray Him.  And each had asked:--'Master, is it I?'--Think of all that emotion there in their lives.  Eventually Judas Iscariot, knowing that he was in the presence of Omniscience, still asked that same question.  And Jesus turned to Judas and He said:--'Go do the thing you have to do.' (John 13:27)  

So Judas Iscariot left.  And only a few hours after this, we see Jesus and the disciples as they went to the Garden  of Gethsemane.   And there since they are so wearied with all the pressures and the tensions of the week and of this hour and not knowing and understanding the fullness of what was ahead, then the disciples one by one  dropped off to sleep, while the Almighty, embodied in the body of a man, kept watch.

The Apostle Paul tells us--in the book of Hebrews that YAHWEH had taken a body, because His children our of the heavens were passing thru bodies of flesh.  And since the children of YAHWEH were in bodies of flesh, then He took Himself a body of the same flesh, that He might be like unto His own kinsmen.   And here in the Garden of Gethsemane He was moving into the final drama and most significant phase of His Messiaship.   This being, the restoration of His Children, without fear--to a life of Freedom and Liberty.  And to lift them out of their guilt complex of condemnation and fear.  And to set them free for all time.

Here in the Garden, Jesus filled the Cup from the water of a small spring.  And then following one of the legal acts of the Kingdom which was known back in the days of Enoch, and in the times of Seth as the ceremony, of a transference with clear water.  Jesus then in all the element of His humanity and realizing that He had now come to a point where He must now consummate the hardest thing He must do for YAHWEH, even, probably, harder than the Cross.

For upon this being of YAHSHUA, The Messiah, there had been, up to now, no transgression and no guilt.  He was the Lamb without spot or guilt.  From the hour of His birth, throughout the course of His ministry, there had been no transgression.  He had been tempted in all things such as we are tempted, but He was triumphant.  For He had submitted to this experience, even thought He was the very YAHWEH in the body of a man and He had refused to let the aura of His Glory envelope His body.  Had the aura been there, this hour could have never taken place.

What the disciples did not understand, but what the followers of Christ, Christians must understand concerning this hour,--is that HE the Almighty God, without transgression, and yet with full knowledge and knowing the full impact of that day and all the catastrophe it would cause, and knowing all the processes of all troubles and pain that had swept the Universe, and knowing the earth and all that was involved in all the cares and worries of every man, and knowing that the greatest fear of all was -- death,--for this was the unknown to those who were not familiar with the truth and the scriptures as were some of the Old Patriarchs and those who were more devout.