04.16.2025 - Devotion for Holy Week

Intro to Holy Week

Scripture

Luke 9:23–25 NIV

23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

God

Welcome to Holy Week. We call this week leading up to Easter Holy Week because it reminds us of those very important last days Jesus had on earth before dying on the cross and rising from the dead. It is also the final week of Lent. I shared Sunday that the passage I just read to you is probably the theme for lent. While Luke tells us that he talked to the disciples about carrying their crosses before he got to Jerusalem, I think they probably remembered it and may have heard it again in a new way during Holy Week. What may have seemed symbolic suddenly became very real: walking by crosses, they could see and touch and hear and smell.

If you were to ask the people around you what they knew about Jesus, what would they say? I think many people could tell you he was a miracle, baby, and they might even know some of the details of why. They could probably tell you that he died on the cross so people could go to heaven and that three days later, he rose from the dead. Somewhere in the middle of that, he taught us to love one another. And that’s about it. If we only pay attention to God during those very high holy days like Christmas and Easter, the entire life and ministry of Jesus gets squished down into a few lines, leaving us not knowing much about the one person we owe our life to more than anyone else.

Me

That’s a little sad to think about, and it makes me wonder what my life is so full of that I don’t have time to spend with Jesus as he carefully measured out his words and actions, knowing he was in his final days on earth.

If you miss Holy Week, you miss the excitement of Palm Sunday, where Jesus stirred the hearts and minds of all his people, helping them to see him as their Messiah, coming home to save them all.

You miss how he got angry in the temple, turning over the merchants' tables and reminding those who gathered there that it was to be a house of prayer for all the nations, not just a place to come and buy forgiveness.

You miss those final, very important lessons Jesus taught his disciples in the upper room, teaching them what it meant to be truly clean, how to serve one another, and to raise the standard of love beyond the way we want to love and be loved to the way Jesus loves us.

You miss the anguish, grief, and struggles of Jesus and the prayers he prayed for himself, his disciples, and you and I.

Throughout this whole week, you could miss the way Jesus shows us how to embrace our cross and our own suffering and respond with faith and love.

Slow down and take it in

We need to slow down and spend time with Jesus as he saves his best for last.

At Bethel Church of Washington, we want to help you do that.

Thursday, April 17, from 10 AM to noon and 6 PM to 8 PM at our south campus, we have Maundy Thursday prayer stations and communion to help lead you in a personal time of prayer and reflection with Jesus. It is self-guided and at your own pace, allowing you to spend the time with Jesus you need.

We have a Good Friday service at 7 PM on April 18 at our North campus. This Tenebrae service leads us through the death of Jesus, in scripture and song, as we slowly extinguish the light of the world that he was and is to us.

These two opportunities will draw you closer to Jesus this week and help prepare your heart and mind to receive the joy of Easter morning. We will have a sunrise service at 7 AM at our south campus with a Fellowship breakfast to follow, and then our normal Easter services at both campuses at their normal times.

Don’t lose another year to the busyness of our world that constantly pulls you away from Jesus. Don’t go through your Easter celebrations and find yourself down the road getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas and realizing you never did figure out what it meant to carry your cross with Jesus. Don’t let your connection to Jesus be that you know he was born and he died, and he rose again, like historical facts about someone you never met. Jesus warned us that if we try to grab hold of life and hold onto it with all we have, we will lose everything. But if we let go of life and grab hold of him instead, we will find true life that can never be taken away from us.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, I pray for our church and everyone who calls themselves a part of it. I pray they will see you wholeheartedly, learn everything you want to teach them, and let you shape them into the people you want them to be. I pray for our community. I pray that everyone will have an opportunity to get to know you and that we will be brave and loving enough to share you with everyone you connect us with. I pray that you will meet everyone who attends these Holy Week and Easter services and help them find who they are in you. I pray that you would provide anyone who watches this or hears this takes the opportunity to slow down and spend time getting to know you. Help us let go of the things that keep us from you as we pick up our crosses and follow you to new life. In Jesus name, amen.