The Significance of Holy Week
Palm Sunday begins what we call “Holy Week.” To understand the significance of this week, let’s summarize the bare facts of the three major events in the ministry of Jesus just prior to his resurrection. Each of the three is heavily loaded with irony.
1) Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. He comes to people who think he is the deliverer with great worldly power to set the Romans back on their heels (a Clint Eastwood type Messiah). “He’s the king!” But they soon discover that he’s not really the king—at least, not the sort of political deliverer they were hoping for. And then, finally, they discover that he really is a King after all, but of a kingdom most of them didn’t want.
2) On Maundy Thursday (from Maundatum Novum—“new commandment”) the disciples learn that their job description was to love one another. Love was their mission from then on. But the great irony is that the quality and intensity of the love Jesus expected of them was humanly impossible. Radical love was absolutely required, but absolutely beyond them. It was possible only if Jesus was living powerfully in them to do what they couldn’t.
3) On Good Friday (the day of crucifixion) the irony is that Jesus had his life snatched from him by evil people, but yet he gave his life willingly. This summarizes the fact that things happen in this world on two levels—the temporal, earthly, human level, and also on the eternal, transcendent, and providential. Jesus refers to his death as his “exodus.” (It’s there in the Greek, but translated away in the English version). He meant that his death and what was to follow was an echo of the greatest deliverance event of the Old Testament—the Exodus from Egypt.
But in this case, the evil aimed at him became by God’s decree the major deliverance event of all time. This was as if God was saying, “Okay, you may choose to sink to the lowest level humanly possible, but I shall turn that evil into the very thing that will save you. In this way, you’ll know absolutely that there’s nothing you can do to save yourselves. It’s totally my doing and not yours. It’s not on the basis of your goodness that I’ll save you, but on the basis of your sin and my grace. You can take no credit for it whatsoever!”
What more dramatic and clear-cut statement about the nature of salvation could there be than this? Jesus came to save us sinners from death by paying our debt for us, and then offering us eternal life as a free gift. His death became our “exodus” from the bonds of selfishness and sin leading to the Promised Land of God’s eternal kingdom. All this becomes ratified by his resurrection just a few days later.
Let’s not allow the meaning of Holy Week to get buried in the mountain of religious hocus-pocus, frenzied Easter hunts, and fast-lane recreation that so marks the season. Instead, let us stop and take time to stand in awe of God’s astonishing deliverance of Jesus Christ.
Every other last Sunday, we designate as Family Sunday to celebrate our time together as a church family. Children, youth, and adults join together to participate in different events and activities. This Palm Sunday, we will watch an excellent, profound, but simple, film—the retelling of Jesus’ life, from his birth to his resurrection. Join us as we experience the impact of Jesus’ life on many and on us.
Prayers for those who will be away traveling.
