Dead and Buried
Read: John 19:31-42 Since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there. (v. 42) On Saturday, Jesus was dead. Christians call this day, the day when life itself stopped and Jesus’s body lay in the tomb, Holy Saturday. After Jesus died, he was buried. It’s a simple statement that we repeat, perhaps unthinkingly, […]
Beneath the Cross of Jesus
Read: John 19:17-30 And I, when I am lifted up . . . will draw all people to myself. (John 12:32) Beneath the cross of Jesus was not a nice place to be. The sights and sounds and smells of that place on that day would have been utterly revolting. None of us would really […]
The Person Who Carried His Cross
Read: Luke 23:26-33 They seized one Simon of Cyrene . . . and laid on him the cross. (v. 26) There is a street in Jerusalem known as the Via Dolorosa, the “Way of Sorrows.” It is the route Christ is believed to have followed when he carried his cross—actually the patibulum, or crossbeam—to the […]
The Judge Who Condemned Him
Read: John 18:28-19:16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. (v. 16) The Apostles’ Creed mentions three names among its 100 or so words. The first, of course, is Jesus; the second is Mary; the third is Pontius Pilate. Pilate would have been totally forgotten, just another minor official from a long-dead […]
The Disciple Who Denied Him
Read: Matthew 26:31-35, 69-75 And immediately the rooster crowed. (v. 74) Many of the people who welcomed Jesus with loud “Hosannas” on Palm Sunday must also have shouted, “Crucify him!” on Good Friday. It’s perilously easy to betray or deny Christ; all you have to do is fall in with the crowd. Having done that […]
The Man Who Betrayed Him
Read: Matthew 26:20-25 Is it I, Lord? (v. 22) Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion sets Matthew’s text of the passion story to dramatic music. When the soloist singing Jesus’s words announces to the disciples that one of them will betray him, an agitated chorus immediately breaks in with the disciples’ question, “Lord, is it […]
The Crowd That Acclaimed Him
Read: Matthew 21:1-11 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! (v. 9) Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Notice three things about this familiar story. First, it was a deliberate act. As you read the gospel accounts, you can’t help but notice a sense of […]
The Heart of the Gospel
Read: Isaiah 53:5-8 The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (v. 6) What is the central message of the Christian faith? The apostle Paul summarized his preaching and teaching ministry as “the word of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18). Later in that same epistle he says the message of the gospel […]
What’s Wrong?
Read: Luke 15:1-7 All we like sheep have gone astray. (v. 6) The prayer of confession for the morning service in the Book of Common Prayer teaches us to pray like this: “Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices […]