Easter Holidays

Holy Week: Good Friday

…AND THE LORD HAS LAID ON HIM THE INIQUITY OF US ALL (ISAIAH 53:6).

Good Friday. The irony of the name has proven hard to reconcile for many. What’s so good about a sham trial, brutal torture, and the most humiliating and excruciating form of execution conceivable? “Good Friday is filled to the brim with blood, injustice, and death” (McCauley, 2022).

Over 700 years before the death of Jesus at Calvary, the prophet Isaiah foretold this day and our role in it. “We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way…” (Isaiah 53:6). We are none innocent. In ways great and small, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)—short of the image we were created to bear in an insurmountable violation of purpose. “…and the LORD has punished (laid on) Him with the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

And what a punishment it was, bearing the wrath of God against sin. “…This is the day when the Living Water says, ‘I thirst.’ It is the day when the Bread of Life hungers, the Resurrection and the Life dies, the Priest becomes the sacrifice, the King of the Jews is killed like a criminal. No wonder we stammer in the face of this mystery” (Witvliet, 2010). A cross not only ended a life but did so in the most ridiculing way possible—by magnifying Caesar’s domination over the one gasping for air on a stake. With Roman soldiers standing around and crowds screaming in rage and laughter, Good Friday looked like the triumph of Babel, right down to the signs in multiple languages over the head of the crucified King (Moore, 2022). “The cross forces us to take seriously our sins and those of the world. Our trespasses are of grave concern” (McCauley, 2022).

We dare not minimize the cross of Christ, softening its blow to our notions of self-righteousness or “self-help-ability.” We dare not repackage it with a nobility it was never afforded. Recognizing this tendency, the Rev. Fleming Rutledge (2019) warned, “‘A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of Christ without a cross.’ When this happens, we may have religiosity, we may have uplift, we may have spirituality, but we do not have Christianity.” The Apostle Peter, quoting the Prophet Isaiah long before him, rightly described a crucified Savior as “…a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense,” (1 Peter 2:8) skandalon in the original Greek. The word of the cross—its necessity, its brutality, its humiliation—is scandalous.

 
 
 
 

And yet, “We gather on Good Friday not to wallow in guilt, but to announce that sin and guilt have been atoned for, conquered, healed, addressed, dealt with once and for all, in heaven and on earth through the blood of the cross” (Witvliet, 2010). Good Friday is not the story of tragedy, but of triumph.

On this day, when the sky became dark at noon, when the temple curtain was torn in two, when time on this tired earth nearly stood still—on this day when "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross"—we whisper with great joy: "Welcome all wonders in one sight. Eternity shut in a span. Summer in winter. Day in night. Heaven in earth. And God in man."

Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (Witvliet, 2010).

“Jesus is the beginning of the resistance. In Him God declares that sin and death will not always rule… The cross of Christ is not an ending, a final act of evil in a world that knows only the destruction of good. The cross is evil meeting a more powerful foe: Emmanuel, God with us, even unto death” (McCauley, 2022). Jesus our propitiation “set [His] passion, cross, and death between [His] judgment and our souls, now and in the hour of our death” (The Book of Common Prayer, 1979).

We have no such claim apart from the saving work of Jesus at Calvary. “So we weep at the evil our sins have caused, but we also rejoice in the glory of God. We remember the price by which we were purchased and the life it opened up to us. We find our strength at the cross, where God’s Son became weak for us” (McCauley, 2022). And we join with those redeemed through the shed blood of Jesus Christ in prayer:

“Almighty God, we pray You graciously to behold this Your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (The Book of Common Prayer, 1979).

 

LEARN MORE ABOUT GOOD FRIDAY AND THE REST OF THE EASTER SEASON

Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal (Fullness of Time) by Esau McCauley (2022, IVP Formatio)

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer (2005, Oxford University Press)

A Crescendo of Wonder by John Witvliet (2010, Christianity Today)

The Cross Contradicts our Culture Wars by Russell Moore (2022, Christianity Today)

Why Good Friday is So Good - And How it Makes Easter Such Great News by Karl Vaters (2019, Christianity Today)

Why ‘Being Christian Without the Church’ Fails the Good Friday Test by Fleming Rutledge (2019, Christianity Today)

 

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Holy Week: Maundy Thursday

“I GIVE YOU A NEW COMMAND: LOVE ONE ANOTHER…”

On His last night with His disciples, Jesus gave this new command. “…Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35, emphasis mine). From this new command, mandatum novum in Latin, we received the name Maundy Thursday, a Passover celebrated like none other.

Much is written regarding the institution of the Lord’s Supper (i.e., communion or the eucharist, depending on one’s faith tradition) as part of this particular Passover celebration. During this final meal with His disciples, Jesus certainly looked to the past to honor the salvation of Israel by the mighty hand and outstretched arm of the LORD when He passed over and spared from death the firstborn of every home sealed with the covenant of blood (Exodus 12). Jesus also presently described His impending death as a new Passover, a new covenant through a broken body and poured out blood “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14: 22-25, Luke 22:14-20). In that Passover, Jesus even looked ahead to a future feast known as the marriage supper of the Lamb (Matthew 26:29, Revelation 19:9). Each time a congregation of believers celebrates communion, they likewise look backward to a redemption through the blood of Jesus, inward to a present reality of the grace in which we stand, and forward to the day of consummation when those who are born again in Christ will live with Him.

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”

In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

 
 

Yet, the institution of the Lord’s Supper was not the only instruction Jesus provided in His last words to His disciples. In the gospel of John, we read more of the events of that Passover observance:

Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into His hands, that He had come from God, and that He was going back to God. So He got up from supper, laid aside His outer clothing, took a towel, and tied it around Himself. Next He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel tied around Him (John 13:3-5).

It is difficult to convey the scandal wrapped in such a seemingly benign story. The image of the Rabbi—and this Rabbi the eternally sent Son of God—washing any feet at all, much less the feet of his inferiors, isn’t merely an illustration of servant leadership. To stop at that application is to miss the depth of what Jesus does in this moment. In setting aside his outer clothing, He stripped to the attire of a slave. In washing the dusty feet of His disciples, Jesus willingly—insistently—stooped past mere servitude to the point of humiliation. The embarrassment was almost more than Simon Peter could bear (John 13:6-10).

Cyril, the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412-444, captured the tension of this moment that would give way to a new commandment:

What could be stranger than this?
What more awesome?

He who is clothed with light as with a garment (Ps. 104:2)
is girded with a towel.
He who binds up the waters in His clouds (Job 26:8),
who sealed the abyss by His fearful Name,
is bound with a girdle.
He who gathers together
the waters of the sea as in a vessel (Ps. 33:7)
now pours water in to a basin.
He who covers the tops of the heavens with water (Ps. 104:3)
washes in water the feet of His disciples.
He who has weighed the heavens with His palm
and the earth with three fingers (Is. 40:12)
now wipes with undefiled palms
the soles of His servants' feet.

He before whom every knee should bow,
of those that are in heaven,
on earth and under the earth (Phil.2:10)
now kneels before His servants.

Cyril of Alexandria (375-444)

If ever there was a tangible image to accompany Philippians 2:6-8, the description of Jesus laying aside the glory of heaven to assume the form of a servant and humble Himself to the point of crucifixion, this is surely it. We are instructed to “adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).

…When Jesus had washed their feet and put on His outer clothing, He reclined again and said to them, “Do you know what I have done for you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are speaking rightly, since that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done for you” (John 13:12-15)

“By this everyone will know you are My disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). By what, exactly? By this example in which service, even to the point of humiliation, is the posture modeled by our Savior. Most churches of every variety continue to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in some form or fashion. Far fewer (like ours) continue to include the washing of feet as part of the remembrance of this new command, because our own abasement is met in the grabbing of sweaty feet to wash and affirm the value of a sibling in Christ.

The world doesn’t mind service on its own terms. Politicians will campaign for seats of power to serve (presumably) our interests. Even pastors will graduate from pulpits to platforms for the sake of (presumably) serving the kingdom. But what if the service accepted—even desired—by the Father is the type modeled for us by the Son? What if, instead of power suits, we are called to be stripped of vestments of title or position? What if service that delights the Lord involves grittiness akin to washing dusty feet—even the feet of those who would betray you? What if service that truly fulfills the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-31) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15-18), requires a posture of humility, even dying to ourselves?

Our human nature rebels against such humiliation and mortification of our flesh apart from the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. As we remember the example of our Lord Jesus, we join the prayer of the global saints in union with Christ:

“Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before He suffered, instituted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, 2005).

 

LEARN MORE ABOUT PALM SUNDAY AND THE REST OF THE EASTER SEASON

Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal (Fullness of Time) by Esau McCauley (2022, IVP Formatio)

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer (2005, Oxford University Press)

Maundy Thursday by Walter Wangerin, Jr. (April 2000, Christianity Today)

The Other Holy Day by Elesha Coffman (2002, Christian History)

Taste and See that the Lord’s Supper is Good by Peter Leithart (2018, Christianity Today)

 

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Holy Week: Wednesday

 
 

“Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave His body to be whipped and His face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident upon the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ Your Son and our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, 2005).

 
 

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Holy Week: Tuesday

 
 

“O God, by the passion of Your blessed Son You made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of Your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, 2005).

 
 

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Holy Week: Monday

 
 

“Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first He suffered pain, and entered not into glory before He was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ Your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, 2005).

 
 

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Holy Week: Palm Sunday

“…HAVING LOVED HIS OWN WHO WERE IN THE WORLD, [JESUS] LOVED THEM TO THE END” (JOHN 13:1).

Palm Sunday marks the beginning of the end of Jesus’ life on earth. Having loved His disciples throughout His ministry, Jesus continued toward Jerusalem and the cross that awaited. Heading wide-eyed toward a certain execution simply makes no sense unless we remember the truths we’ve already clung to during this Easter season. On Ash Wednesday we remembered that there is no resurrection that is not preceded by death. Throughout Lent we recalled that there is no exaltation that is not preceded by humility. On Palm Sunday we are reminded that the cross by necessity precedes the crown.

The events of the Sunday five days before Passover are recorded in all four gospels (Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19). Three of the four accounts reference palm branches or leafy branches that the crowd waved and laid along the path into Jerusalem, along with their coats. Many liturgical churches today will hold processions into their sanctuaries waving palm branches commemorating the approach of Jesus into Jerusalem during the final week of His life on earth. But perhaps the most important symbol of the day is not the palm branches, but the unbroken (previously unridden) donkey colt, the symbol Jesus chose.

Around 520 BC, the prophet Zechariah foretold of the righteous and victorious King that will come to Jerusalem humbly, “riding… on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zech. 9:9). Approximately 550 years later, Jesus fulfills the sign of the King of the universe coming on a donkey’s colt.

Triumphal entries were by no means unique to the story of Jesus. The Roman Triumph (and here, and here) was as ingrained in the culture of the Roman Empire as fireworks on July 4, the celebration of Independence Day in the United States. Artistic depictions such as the Triumph of Aemilius Paulus by Carle Vernet (1789) illustrate the pomp and pageantry; victorious generals crowned with laurel wreaths riding into Rome in gilded chariots loaded down with the spoils of war, drawn by splendid horses. (More artistic examples are here, here, and here.)

Compared to such pageantry, how pitiful Jesus’ “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem must have seemed. Instead of laurel wreaths, the people simply hacked off palm branches to wave. Instead of a gilded chariot, people threw down their coats, both as a saddle and a path. Instead of mighty war horses, Jesus enters on a borrowed unbroken donkey foal—not even trained for riding. There are no spoils of war. And at the end of the path, there is not glory that awaits, but a cross, the highest dishonor Rome could offer.

Ignited by the resurrection of Lazarus of Bethany from the dead (John 11), the people saw in Jesus a hope of liberty and salvation. Yet, liberty and salvation from what? They tell us by the greeting they shouted at Jesus as He entered their midst:

Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes
in the name of the Lord!

Blessed is the coming kingdom
of our father David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!

Mark 11:9-10

“Hosanna!” The word is an urgent plea, an exhortation. “Save us now!” they cried. “Victory now!” they all but demanded. Having raised a man from death, could this Jesus not also subdue Rome? The people longed for the promise of a foretold king, but for what sort of kingdom—a heavenly or an earthly one? For what sort of liberty do they cry out—political or spiritual? This crowd yelled for a king to conquer Rome because they could not even see their greater need for the One King who would conquer sin and death. This blindness is precisely the reason Jesus wept for the city saying, “If you knew this day what would bring peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:41-42).

“Palm Sunday reveals Jesus’ humility. He is not like other kings who enter cities atop war horses in celebration of bloody victory. He is the humble king who saves by dying for the sins of the world” (McCauley, 2022). Jesus is certainly the promised Son of David, but the shape of that kingship is cruciform—cross-shaped. All of Jesus’ life, from His very first cries in the manger, have led to this moment, this place, this holy week.

As disciples (students and followers) of Christ, are we willing to follow on this road knowing it must pass through Golgotha, the place of death? Are we willing to trade the triumphant war horse for the humble donkey foal? “If we are going to follow Jesus, then we do not have to fight the way the world fights. We do not use their tools and means to get what we want” (McCauley, 2022). More than we do not, we cannot. Is the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, the invitation of union with Him a dear enough prize that we would count all else as waste and declare with the apostle Paul, “My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…” (Phil. 3:10, emphasis mine)? Will we join this prayer with the saints of the global church:

Almighty and everlasting God, in Your tender love for the human race You sent Your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon Him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of His great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of His suffering, and also share in His resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, 2005).

 

LEARN MORE ABOUT PALM SUNDAY AND THE REST OF THE EASTER SEASON

Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal (Fullness of Time) by Esau McCauley (2022, IVP Formatio)

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer (2005, Oxford University Press)

 

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Fifth Sunday of Lent (A Prayer)

“O Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant Your people grace to love what You command and desire what You promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, 2005).

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Fourth Sunday of Lent (A Prayer)

“Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that He may live in us, and we in Him; who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, 2005).

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