Book explores hours leading to Crucifixion
By Kathy L. Gilbert*
Dec. 1, 2009
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The Rev. Adam Hamilton is challenging Christians to spend six weeks
focused on a day that changed world history: Jesus’ Crucifixion.
In “24 Hours That Changed the World,” Hamilton retraces Jesus’ footsteps “from the Mount of Olives to Mount Calvary.”
“It’s the central story of our faith about a God who suffers for us and
the price that God is willing to pay to redeem us and save us,” he says.
Hamilton is senior and founding pastor of The United Methodist Church
of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., one of the fastest-growing
churches in the United States. The church has grown from four people in
1990 to more than 12,000 adult members with an average weekly worship
attendance of over 7,500 in 2008. “24 Hours That Changed the World” is
Hamilton’s 10th book published by Abingdon Press and includes a DVD,
leader’s guide and 40-day devotional book. He spoke recently with
United Methodist News Service about his latest project.
Q: What was the inspiration for this book?
A: The model for this was the television show “24,”
where an entire season is one 24-hour day. I began thinking about what
would happen if we took the events of Jesus’ final 24 hours and did
this.
The book begins with the preparation for the Last Supper as Jesus sends
the disciples into town to prepare the Passover Seder. And then each
chapter takes a successive event in that last 24 hours.
In churches, we have Palm Sunday … one Sunday on which to focus half of
the service on the most important event in world history, and that was
the death of Christ. So we began saying, “How about if we spend six
weeks … an entire Lenten season focused on just that last 24 hours of
his life?”
Q: What went into your preparation and research for this project?
The Rev. Adam Hamilton is pastor of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.
A UMNS file photo by Kathy L. Gilbert.
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A: I spent a lot of time researching things like Roman
crucifixion methods and how exactly meals were served in the first
century for the Last Supper. I went to the Holy Land and actually
retraced the steps of Jesus. I walked the exact journey to get a feel
of what that might have felt like.
My goal was to teach people something that they may not have known
about this story to help them think about its meaning for their lives.
So teaching about the facts, helping them think about what this means –
how does the story of Jesus’ Last Supper speak into my life? How does
his arrest and the events that were happening with the disciples in the
garden – what does that mean for me?
The last four chapters are devoted to a different theory of the
atonement. We look at four theories of the atonement or understanding.
How did Jesus’ death on the cross bring about salvation for us? I find
a lot of Christians struggle with that. We believe that Jesus died for
us, but we’re not exactly clear how we can explain how that happened.
So that’s another dimension of the book.
And finally my hope is just to inspire people when they read it. There
are stories in there that would touch their hearts and help them, you
know, identify with the suffering and death of Christ at a heart level.
Q: What was it like for you to go to the Holy Land to retrace Jesus’ steps and film your journey?
A: My wife and I spent a week in the Holy Land
virtually by ourselves just meeting with scholars, other people there,
to learn all that we could about the events and places. So while we
were preparing the videos, it was just a time of real renewal.
Typically the videos that we’ve done for my studies are edits of the
sermons from which the books emerged. But in this case, it’s totally
different. I take people to walk inside a first century tomb in
Jerusalem. We build a Roman cross in the video where people can see how
they went together and what the elements were, and (we) set up a Last
Supper where they actually have a chance to see how it probably
occurred.
I’m just very excited about this because I feel like each of these
components has something that will deepen the faith of people and for
churches to use it.
In our own church when we did this, I was astounded at how it affected
our people. I mean, their faith was deepened. There was a greater sense
of reverence. There was a greater anticipation of Easter. More people
signed up for missions than had signed up for missions before. More
people showed up for our prayer vigil than we’d had before. It just
really had a profound impact.
So I’m just so excited to share this with other people and hopefully have this kind of impact in their churches.
Q: How do you find the time to write books?
A: I learned something from Jim Moore, who served as
pastor in Houston years ago. I asked him the same question, and he
said, “I write every sermon as though it’s going to be a chapter in a
book.” That helped me begin thinking when I have a sermon series that I
think might be also a good book, I make sure I’m going to spend 20
hours writing that sermon. And that gives me a pretty good foundation
up front.
In this case, it was 120 hours crafting, reading and researching and
studying for these sermons. But it also was preparation for writing the
book. And then the church will typically give me a week off during the
year to do writing and those kinds of things. I get away by myself
somewhere and I’ll spend another 70 hours that week. And then there’s a
lot of late nights. I had probably two or three nights where literally
I was up all night long.
It’s really a labor of love. And this book in particular, between the
book and the study – the small-group study – and the devotional, it was
a two-year process of getting all that finished.
Q: What do you do to feed your creativity?
A: I’ll tell you part of it is doing the reading and
research for books like this. So when I was studying and I would learn
something new I hadn’t learned in seminary about, you know, Roman
crosses or about the way the Last Supper was set up or these kinds of
things, as I would learn those things, I found myself excited. I’d get
energized by something new that I had learned.
My wife and I each have motorcycles, and when the weather is nice,
we’ll go out and ride out in the country. I’ve got an old 1964 John
Deere tractor, and we live on 13 acres of land. And I’ll go hook up the
brush hog and go mow stuff down. I find that refreshing. On a more
spiritual front, we’re in a small group, and usually I’m constantly
reading something that’s renewing my faith.
Q: What do you hope to accomplish with this book, DVD and devotional guide?
A: It’s set up to be something that a congregation or
a small group or an individual could do over 40 days. And ideally that
ties into the season of Lent, but it wouldn’t have to.
I was thinking, you know, Rick Warren and others have done the 40 days
of purpose, the 40 days of community. What I’m excited about … is this
is 40 days about the cross. This is 40 days focused on the central,
most important event in human history from a Christian perspective. And
so I feel like there’s an opportunity here for this to really have an
impact on people’s faith and to deepen their faith.
And so I hope people will take advantage of it and that it actually
does that for folks, and they come away with a deeper appreciation and
a deeper understanding of what happened on the cross or in the last 24
hours of Jesus’ life and what it means for them.
*Gilbert is a news writer for United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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