Most people run from danger. After all, what could be more instinctive than self-preservation? That’s why we usually reserve words like “hero” for those who deliberately walk into danger for the sake of others. Firefighters. Soldiers. Police officers. People who know they might suffer—even die—but who answer the call anyway because it’s what they signed up for. But this Holy Week, we celebrate the Hero of all heroes on his final journey to Jerusalem. No man was ever more aware of what he was walking into. He’d described it graphically to his closest friends, saying, “They will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him” (Mark 10:34). A lesser man would’ve hidden his face from such scandal. But our Lord wasn’t a lesser man. (Still isn’t.) Echoing words from Isaiah’s third Servant Song (Isa. 50:4–11), Luke tells us, “When the days drew near for [Jesus] to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). Let’s honor our Lord by considering the glorious virtues wrapped up in those words. Unflinching Commitment Winston Churchill described his rise to prime minister during World War II by saying, “I felt as if I were walking with Destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.” Imagine how Churchill would’ve felt if his “hour” had been prophesied for centuries in Scripture (Heb. 10:7). That’s how Jesus felt. His life wasn’t his own to live as he pleased. He didn’t have five or six valid options staring him in the face. He only had one. And it led to Jerusalem, through suffering, to the cross. He knew it, and he didn’t flinch. When Satan tried to reroute him, he wielded Scripture (Luke 4:5–8). When Peter tried to talk him out of it, he called him “Satan” (Matt. 16:22–23). When he confronted the natural, sinless “trouble” in his own soul, he preached the truth himself, saying, Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. (John 12:27) Everyone had their own agenda for Jesus. The Jews wanted to make him a king by force (John 6:15). The Samaritans, whatever else they wanted, didn’t want him to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:53). Jesus didn’t care. He had one job: to do the Father’s will (John 4:34; 6:38). And until that job was done, he refused to take his eyes off the mission. Undaunted Courage Stephen Ambrose used the phrase “undaunted courage” for the title of his book on Lewis and Clark’s daring expedition. It seems fitting, given the pair journeyed into an unknown wilderness where few Europeans had traveled before, knowing they were sure to encounter hostile weather, hostile animals, and hostile people. Jesus had one job: to do the Father’s will. And until that job was done, he refused to take his eyes off the mission. Jesus had already displayed undaunted courage simply by becoming human, thereby exposing himself to the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” But as he faced Jerusalem, the hardest part of his mission was still to come, and Jesus knew it. Yet listen to how Mark describes that final journey: “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid” (Mark 10:32). “Afraid” because he’d already warned them twice that he’d die on this trip (Mark 8:31–32; 9:30–31; cf. John 11:8). But “amazed” because in defiance of it all, Jesus wasn’t lagging behind or bringing up the rear or sending them to scout for danger—he was “walking ahead of them,” like the lion-hearted King he is. For as King Lune of Archenland once said (in C. S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy), “This is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat.” Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem may not have been “desperate” (given the certainty of its success), but it was most certainly an “attack”—one in which he would disarm the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame (Col. 2:15). And in that attack, he was “first in.” Unshakable Faith Jesus knew his death was the only way to fulfill God’s plan. In that sense, you could say he had a death wish. Still, Jesus wasn’t on some gloomy suicide mission. Knowing Scripture as he did, he knew that the Father wouldn’t leave his soul in Hades or allow his holy one to see decay (Ps. 16:10; cf. Isa. 53:10). We can hear the Servant’s unshakable faith in the very song Luke is echoing: I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near. (Isa. 50:6–8) He was, indeed. Jesus didn’t set his face like a flint because he believed Jerusalem to be his final stop. Even when preparing the disciples for his death, he made sure to mention his resurrection (Luke 9:22; 18:33). Jesus died in faith, entrusting himself to God and knowing that his tomb would soon be empty. He set his face like a flint for the joy that was set before him (Heb. 12:2). Unstoppable Love We’re told that “many waters cannot quench love” (Song 8:7). And Christ himself teaches us that the greatest display of love is to lay down your life for your loved ones (John 15:13). Love doesn’t stop giving when the cost gets high. It gives what Abraham Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion.” If we wonder what drove Jesus to set his face for Jerusalem, we mustn’t forget this. A true hero chooses death not because he hates life but because he loves the ones he’s dying for. So it is with Christ. Describing Jesus’s state of mind just a few hours before his arrest, John tells us that “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). No one ever loved God or people more than Jesus did. A true hero chooses death not because he hates life but because he loves the ones he’s dying for. And it’s a love we’re called to imitate. We’re not called to atone for sin like Jesus was. But having been freed from sin by his death, we’re called to follow in his steps by taking up our cross and setting our face toward tribulation (Luke 9:23; 1 Pet. 2:21). So as we walk through Holy Week, let’s celebrate the Hero of Jerusalem—the One who wouldn’t be turned aside, no matter the cost. The One who hid not his face from spitting but instead set his face toward it. May his commitment, his courage, his faith, and his love infuse all we do, so we become like our Hero.