Artemis Ward

    Anybody ever heard of Artemis Ward? Maybe a few history buffs, but few others. No wonder. According to preacher Dalton Key, Ward once boasted during the Civil War, “I have already given two cousins to the war, and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife’s brother” (at least he didn’t say his wife’s mother!). Key told the story in a church bulletin article, and noted that “needless to say, Ward’s name is not remembered alongside the names of Grant and Lee as a major figure in the conflict.” A name that will always be remembered for His supreme courage during the greatest conflict of the ages is the name of Jesus Christ! We remember Christ, not because He stood ready to sacrifice others – but precisely because He was not only ready but actually did sacrifice Himself for us! And so we read that He  “[gave] Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet- smelling aroma” (Ephesians 5:2). Matthew 26:47-56 depicts the final few moments of freedom Jesus enjoyed before His betrayal by Judas and subsequent arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus stuns us with His sheer courage in the situation He faced. In His own words, “the hour is at hand” (vs 45), referring, of course, to the whole excruciating ordeal He will face – sham trials, mockery from soldiers and citizens and religious leaders, spit on and physically abused, and finally fastened to a Roman cross by means of nails. It was cross-time for Jesus. The sermons had been preached, the prayers had been prayed, the songs had been sung, the miraculous proofs of His deity and claim to be God’s Son were all done. The only remaining act in the whole sweeping saga was to go to the cross and die as a sin-offering in our place (Romans 5:6-8). And, the Gospel declares, so He did!

    Now consider this. Jesus was not the only one who faced cross-time in Matthew 26. His apostles did, too. Judas had already made his choice. He consciously and willingly sacrificed Jesus, sold the Lord out for thirty pieces of silver (vs 15), and sealed the sad, sorry deal with a kiss (vs 46-49).

Now, suddenly the other eleven apostles find themselves smack dab in the middle of their own crisis. Earlier they had all avowed their undying loyalty to Jesus, even if they had to die with him (vs 35). But, as we know, talk is cheap. Dying with Jesus proved very difficult to do. They were about to prove that, in that moment of weakness at least,  they couldn’t even live for Him! As they say in Spain, “It’s not the same to talk of bulls as it is to be in the bullring.” The disciples remind us, it’s not the same to talk and sing of following Jesus as it is to actually go where He leads us. And so, as each of us has done at one time another and in one way or another, they bailed on Jesus. They will recover later, magnificently so (Acts 2, 4, 5).

But when it became clear the Lord was going with His foes and that the going would get very rough, ending at a cross, Matthew reports tersely, “Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled” (vs 56). When cross-time came for Jesus, He remained faithful and true – to God and to us!

    Now the question confronts each of us:  in these days when genuinely following Jesus is becoming less cool, what will we do when our cross- times come? Will we forsake and flee, or will we be faithful and true? How far will you follow Jesus?