Holy Week

Palm Sunday

What is Palm Sunday? Palm Sunday is the starting point for Holy Week. It is the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. People were so excited to see him, they threw their cloaks on the ground as well as Palm branches. This is something they would do for a king, not just any random person. What is interesting is what happens later in the week when these same people are the ones who cry out “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

Monday

On Monday is when we have Jesus cleansing the temple. Why did he do this?

He did it because people were making a mockery of the temple. Some people say it’s because people were buying and selling in the temple. That could be, but it could also be that the people were charging extremely high prices for things. You have to remember this was the week of the Passover so Jerusalem would’ve been bumping. Like imagine the Texas state fair where there are so many people that sometimes it’s difficult to walk around. This is the time that Jesus flipped over tables, and drove people out of the temple with a whip. This is righteous anger.

Tuesday

Tuesday is when we get the Olivet discourse found in Matthew 24, I’m going to read that for us now.

Matthew 24 ESV

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Wednesday

Wednesday is often called “Silent Wednesday” because the Gospels don’t tell us anything that happened this day. So because we don’t know I won’t speak any more on it.

Maundy Thursday

On Thursday which we will celebrate tomorrow, we call is Maundy Thursday. The word Maundy means washing of feet. Because as you’ll remember during the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus bent down and washed the feet of all of his disciples. It is on this night that we remember the beginning of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper or Communion.

Good Friday

To me one of the best messages for Good Friday was a sermon called “Were You There?” by a pastor named Peter Marshall. Let me share it with you now.

The morning sun had been up for some hours over the city of David. Already pilgrims and visitors were pouring in through the gates, mingling with merchants from the villages round about, with shepherds coming down from the hills, and the gnarled streets were crowded.

There were the aged, stooped with years, muttering to themselves as they pushed through the throngs, and there were children playing in the streets, calling to each other in shrill voices. There were men and women too, carrying burdens, baskets of vegetables, casks of wine, water bags. And there were tradesmen with their tools. Here a donkey stood sleepily beneath his burden in the sunlight. And there, under a narrow canopy, a merchant shouted his wares in a pavement stall.

It was not easy to make one's way through the crowd. But it was especially difficult for a procession that started out from the governor's palace. At its head rode a Roman centurion, disdainful and aloof, scorn for the like of child or cripple who might be in his way. His lips curled in thin lines of contempt as he watched through eyes the shouting, jeering crowd.

Before him went two legionnaires, clearing the crowd aside as best they could with curses and careless blows. The procession moved at a snail's pace. The soldiers tried to keep step, but it was evident that the centurion guards did not relish this routine task that came to them every now and then in the government of this troublesome province. The sunlight glanced on the spears and helmets of the soldiers. There was a rhythmic clanking of steel as their shields touched their belt buckles and the scabbards of their swords.

Between the two files of soldiers staggered three condemned men each carrying a heavy bar of wood with its crosspiece on which he was to be executed. It was hard to keep step for the pace was slow and the soldiers were impatient to get it over: left, right, left, right.

"Come along. We don't have all day to spend!"

The crosses were heavy, however, and the first of the victims was at the point of collapse. He had been under severe strain for several days. Moreover, he had been scourged, lashed with a leather whip in the thongs of which had been inserted rough pieces of lead. The carpenter followed them with his ladder and his nails. And they all moved forward out of the courtyard of Pilate's palace and made for one of the gates leading out of the city.

The sun was hot. The sweat poured down the face of Jesus, and he swayed now and then underneath the weight of the cross. A depression had fallen on the soldiers, and they marched in silence as if reluctant.

A group of women went with the procession, their faces by their veils, but their grief could not be hid. Some of them were sobbing aloud. Others were praying. Others moaning in that deep grief that knows not what to say or what to do.

Some of them had little children by the hand and kept saving over and over again, "What harm hath he done? Why should they put him to death? He healed my child. A touch of his hand and this little one could see."

Another mother would chime in, "He brought my child back to life. She had all but died. What harm could there be in that?"

And so they wondered, and so they went.

And there were men too who followed as closely as they could—men who walked with the strange steps of men to whom walking was not yet familiar, and others who still carried sticks in their hands but who did not use them as once they had to tap their way through villages and towns and cities, men who had been blind and now through habit carried sticks and who strangely enough were blind again, but this time they were blinded by tears. Their lips were moving in prayers, and their hearts were heavy. But there was nothing that they could do.

Once when the procession halted for a moment, Jesus turned and spoke to them, but they could not hear him for the shouting of the rabble. For most of the crowd hardly knew what was going on. They did not understand. They had caught the infection of mob spirit. They shouted to the first of the three victims, the one with the ridiculous crown on his head, twisted from a branch of the briar that had lacerated his scalp and caused blood to mingle with the sweat. They shouted at him until they were roughly pushed aside by the soldiers, and in some cases, they began to shout at the soldiers. Some of the children, encouraged by their elders, joined in the shouting as the procession went along the way that will forever be known as the Via Dolorosa.

Meanwhile outside the city gate, all unsuspecting, Simon of Cyrene had almost reached the gate. He had just arrived in Judea and was about to enter the Holy City as a pilgrim for the festival. He had spent the night in a village nearby, and rising early this morning he had bathed and dressed himself carefully with a tingling excitement because soon he would be in Jerusalem, and all the sights that had been described to him by exiles far from home he would see with his own eyes. And all the sounds of Jerusalem that seemed to be wafted across the miles to be murmured by the waves of the sea and to be sung by the wind as it moaned through the trees he would hear with his own ears. And yet he tried to keep calm.

And as he set out on the short walk that lay between him and the city, he was very thoughtful. He walked along the winding path that sometimes ran through the fields, sometimes along the tortuous course of a river bed, sometimes wound up a jagged hillside to twist down again among giant boulders and huge rocks behind which highwaymen could easily hide. He walked along beside the tall rushes and through the divided crops. He could hear the sheep bleating on the inhospitable hillside while the morning sun climbed higher and higher and chased away the mists that had lain for rest upon the hilltops until now they trailed down into the valleys like a tulle scarf thrown over a lady's shoulder.

Already he could see ahead of him the domes of the temple gleaming gold in the sunshine. And he thought of his own city, Cyrene, looking down from the elevation over the waters of the Mediterranean.

As he neared the city gate, he began to hear shouting that grew louder and louder. And there seemed to Simon to be a sort of beat to it, a time in it, a rhythm—a sort of chant that he thought sounded like "Crucify, crucify, crucify." And they met right at the city gate—Simon of Cyrene and the crowd.

He found that the procession was headed by some Roman soldiers. He could recognize them anywhere. He knew a legionnaire when he saw one—the insignia on their shields and their uniforms. He could not be mistaken: it was official, this procession. But he had little time to gather impressions, and as for asking questions, that was impossible. He could not make himself heard in all this noise, in the confusion that seemed to be so violent and so terrible. There was a sinister, throbbing malice in the atmosphere, and Simon shuddered.

And then he was aware of two moving walls of Roman steel between which there staggered a man carrying a cross. And then he saw there were three men. But it was one, one in particular, that attracted his attention.

He thought there must be something strange about it all, but before he could understand it, he was caught up in the procession and swept out through the gate again. He was excited, afraid somehow and helpless. He was puzzled and ill at ease. He scanned face after face, quickly looking for some light of welcome, some word of explanation, some smile, some friendliness, but he found none. The whole atmosphere was drama and cruelty. The horror of it all crept over him like a clammy mist, and he shivered.

He had been captured by the procession, stumbling along, tightly wedged in the very heart of it, walking along beside the three men who staggered under the weight of crosses of heavy wood on which Simon knew they were soon to be put to death. Each man was bent beneath the burden he carried. Perspiration moistened each drawn face.

But that one to which he had been so attracted, that one that was strangely appealing—it was a face that arrested him, and Simon felt his gaze returning again and again to that one face. He noticed that blood was trickling down from wounds in the brow, and then he saw what caused it: a twig of briar twisted round, in the shape of a crown, and pushed down on the forehead.

But it was his eyes, it was the terrible look in his eyes, that fascinated, awed, and frightened Simon. He watched with bleeding heart as they shuffled along. My, but the look in those eyes. Simon could see nothing else, and as he walked everything was forgotten: the feast, the celebration, the temple, his mission, friends he was to meet, and errands he had to accomplish. Everything was forgotten as he watched the man carrying the cross.

And then he looked up, his eyes almost blinded by the blood that trickled down from under that grotesque crown on his head. Why didn't somebody wipe his eyes? And as Simon looked at him, he looked at Simon, and the eyes of these two met.

How did Christ know what was in Simon's heart? What was it that made him smile that slow, sad smile that seemed to say so much to Simon, that seemed to calm his wildly beating heart? The look that passed between them Simon never forgot as long as he lived, for no man can look at Jesus and remain the same.

Again, just as these two looked at each other, the man with the cross stumbled, and the soldiers, moved more by impatience than by pity, seeing that the Nazarene was almost too exhausted to carry his cross any farther, laid hands on Simon and forced him to lift it up.

Simon's heart almost stopped beating. He was too excited to speak. Why just a few minutes before: a lonely pilgrim quietly approaching the Holy City. See him now: his shoulders stooped under the weight of a cross on which this man—this man with the arresting face—was soon to die: in the midst of the procession of howling men and women, walking between two moving walls of Roman steel, and carrying on his shoulder another's cross.

The look of gratitude and love that flashed from the eyes of Jesus as Simon lifted the load from his tired, bleeding shoulders did something to the man from Cyrene. And in an instant all of life was changed. Simon could never explain it afterwards. There are some things you can't explain. He could never tell exactly how it happened, how all at once he saw the meaning of pain. He understood the significance of suffering. The meaning of prayer was unveiled.

And the message of the Scriptures—why, the passages he had memorized as a child: the messianic songs, the prophecy of Isaiah, why, whole passages of Scripture—now came to life. He saw what they meant for the first time. It was as if a light had been turned on in his heart and soul, as if divine illumination had given to him meanings and significances he had missed until now. He understood. And somehow he was glad. And yet his joy was deeply touched with sorrow.

And so they came to Calvary. They called it Golgotha. And visitors to Jerusalem would be asked if they agreed that, seen in silhouette, it suggested a human skull. It was a place to be avoided. It was where two great highways converged upon the city, on the city of Jerusalem—and down in the valley below a place of stench, a place of horror, an ugly place where refuse always burned. And the evil smelling smoke curled up and was wafted over the brow of Golgotha. That was the place of public executions. And there the procession stops.

Only as the nails were driven in did the shouting stop. There was a hush, because most of them were stunned and horrified, even the hardest of them was silenced. It is not pleasant to watch nails being driven through human flesh. Mary, his mother, stopped her ears and turned away her head. They could hear the echo across the Kidron valley—the hammer blows. Simon of Cyrene from time to time wiped away his tears with the back of his hand. Peter stood on the fringe of the crowd—until hot tears filled his eyes and his heart broke in pieces. John stood beside Mary and supported her. The other women were weeping.

But as soon as the Nazarene had mounted his last pulpit, as soon as the cross had fallen with a thud into the pit they had dug for it, the shouting broke out again. There were some who had followed him once, who had been attracted by the charm of the wonderworker. There were many among them who had accepted loaves and fishes at his hands. And now they shouted taunts at him. They remembered what he had said, and now they hurled his sayings back in his teeth. They threw at him, like barbed arrows of hate and malice, promises he had made, predictions and eternal truths that had fallen from his lips. Now they taunted him. They stabbed and wounded him with things he himself had said:

"Aye, he saved others, himself he cannot save. (And you will note, that they admitted here and now all the miracles he had ever performed.) Aye, he had brought back the dead to life again. He had given sight to blind eyes. He had straightened withered limbs. He had caused the cripples to leap and to walk and to praise God in their joy. Aye, he saved others, himself he cannot save."

"Miracle man, come on down from the cross and we will believe—one more miracle, the greatest of them all!"

"Ah ha! Thou who wouldst build the temple in three days, Mr. Carpenter: thou hast nails in thy hand, thou hast no hammer. Thou canst not build a temple up there. Come on down from the cross and we will believe thee!"

"Older than father Abraham! Thou art very old now but young enough to escape if thou would work another miracle. Come on down, and we will believe thee."

They shouted until they were hoarse. The noise was so great that only a few of them standing near the cross heard what he said when his lips moved in prayer: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

One of the thieves, crucified with him, drugged and , cried out to Jesus, "Can't you see how we suffer? If thou art the Son of God, save thyself and us!" He twisted himself upon his cross, he writhed his shoulders, and he leaned on the crosspiece. And then he begged and taunted Christ, if what they said were true, to save all three in great redemption pain. (What he sought was salvation from the nails, not salvation from sin; salvation from pain and suffering, not salvation from punishment.)

Then a spasm of pain gripped him, and he slipped until his weight once again fell upon the nails that held his hands, and he began to curse and to swear until his companion turned his head and rebuked him: "What has this man done that thou should curse him so? Seeing that we are in the same condemnation, dost not thou fear God? They have some excuse for putting us to death because we broke the laws. We sought to start a revolution. But this man hath done nothing.''

Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom."

And Jesus, his face drawn with pain but his voice still kind, answered, "This very day, when the pain is over, we shall be together again. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt be with me in paradise." And the man, comforted, set his lips to endure till the end.

The sun rose higher and higher. Time oozed out like the blood that dripped from the cross.

Jesus opened his eyes and saw his mother standing there and John beside her. He called out the name of John, who came closer. And Jesus said, "You will take care of her, John." And John, choked with tears, put his arm around the shoulders of Mary.

Jesus said to his mother, "He will be your son." His lips were parched, and he spoke with difficulty. He moved his head against the hard wood of the cross as a sick man moves his head on a hot pillow.

A thunderstorm was blowing up from the mountains, and the clouds hid the sun. It was strangely dark. The people looked up at the sky and became frightened. Women took little children by the hand and hurried back to the city before the storm would break. It was an uncanny darkness. It had never been as dark before. Something terrible must be about to happen. Women stood praying for Jesus and for the thieves.

The centurion was silent, although every now and then he would look up at Jesus with a strange look in his eye. The soldiers were silent, too. Their gambling was over. They had won and lost.

Suddenly Jesus opened his eyes and gave a loud cry. The gladness in his voice startled all who heard it, for it sounded like a shout of victory. "It is finished. Father. Into thy hands I commend my spirit." And with that cry he died.

Now we were all there that day on the top of the hill: the friends of Jesus and his enemies. The church people, they were there, as well as the people who never went to church.

The priests were there. And the scribes, the greedy Sadducees, the hypocrites, the proud Pharisees, with their robes, their broad bordered phylacteries on which golden bells were sewn with golden thread— they were there, drawing their robes more tightly around them and standing with arms folded approvingly. They were there.

The people who were always talking about the church and always talking about the Lord, the pious people on whose lips there were always glib quotations from the Scriptures—they were there.

The unbelievers were standing beside them. The harlots were there, and their customers were there. They were all there.

Simon of Cyrene was there, and the soldiers, too. Peter was there, and John and Andrew and James and Thomas and Philip and Matthew and Bartholomew. They were all there.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

When we consider who was there, and when we are honest with ourselves, we know that we were there and that we helped to put Christ there. Because every attitude present on that hilltop that day is present in our midst now. Every emotion that tugs the human heart then, tugs the human heart still. Every face that was there is here too. Every voice that shouted then is shouting still. Every human being was represented on Calvary. Every sin was in a nail or the point of a spear or the thorns. And pardon for them all was in the blood that was shed.

Nineteen hundred years have passed away. But the range of the centuries with our callused tears have not yet washed away the blood from the rotting wood of a deserted cross. Nor have the winds covered his footprints in the sands of Judea. Calvary still stands, and you and I erect the cross again and again and again every time we sin. The hammer blows are still echoing somewhere in the caverns in your heart and mine. Every time we deny him, every time we sin against him or fail to do what he commanded, he is being crucified again and again and again.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord? I was. Were you?

Saturday

Saturday was a dark day. It was the day that everything seemed lost. How is it possible that the Savior of the World was truly dead? It was arguably the darkest day in history for Jesus’ disciples. But we know, living two thousand years later that the story did not end there.

Easter Sunday

We go from one of the darkest days in history to the greatest day in history! Jesus is alive and well and with that is the promise that are sins are forgiven and that one day too we won’t need to fear death as we will be resurrected just like him!