Please enjoy these Holy Week devotionals, written by our Women’s Ministry Coordinator, Stephanie van der Westhuizen. (Scroll to the end for a link to each day’s devotional.)
Introduction from Stephanie:
Last year I spent months doing a deep dive into the narrative of what is often called, “Holy Week,” or the period of time from Palm Sunday through to Resurrection (Easter) Sunday. I love weaving the stories found in the four gospels together into one cohesive timeline and story, and retelling it. I always find it so profitable and uplifting to my faith. The stories come to life in new ways as I consider Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s own unique style, and how they each chose to share different details with us. But they are more than fairy tales, the events found in the gospels are true stories that really happened in space, time, and history. God inspired these four men to remember just the right details, and interview exactly the right people, so that these stories would be passed along to us exactly how God wanted them to be passed on. The gospels are a treasure trove of information about this man, yet Son of God, called Jesus. And I hope that retelling the stories with all four gospels woven together encourages your faith in the way it has encouraged mine.
I wanted to start us of by sharing some fun facts about Holy Week as we find it described in the four gospels. I hope this will serve to whet your appetite for the longer devotionals that cover each day of Holy Week. Did you know that almost half of the book of John is devoted to describing Jesus’ last week on earth, using 9 out of the book’s 21 chapters? That’s 43% of his book! Mark surprisingly (I say surprisingly because with his gospel being the shortest, I’d assumed his Holy Week narrative might be shortest too) devotes the second-most amount of space of his book to Jesus’ last week, with 6 out of 16 chapters. Matthew has the third most with 8 out of 28 chapters, and the book with the least amount of space devoted to Jesus’ last week is Luke, with only 3.5 out of 24 chapters. But even Luke used almost 20% of his book to detail the last week of Jesus’ life, and if we estimate that Jesus’ ministry lasted around 3 years, we’re still talking about using a lot of space to describe what happened in 1 week out of approximately 156 weeks, Jesus’ total weeks of ministry. I bring these numbers up just to show how important the events of this last week of Jesus’ ministry were. If all 4 gospel writers devoted such a large portion of their books to it, it must be worth studying closely.
Why would the writers devote so much time to the last week of Jesus’ life? As I looked through the gospel of Luke, I found 3 statements made by Jesus that summarize why He came.
Luke 4:43, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”
Luke 18:31, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.”
Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Jesus came to fulfil prophecy, to preach the good news of the kingdom of God, and to seek and save the lost, and this is exactly what the gospel writers work to convey through their books.
And so why spend so much time writing about the last week of Jesus’ life? It’s because in this last week of Jesus’ life, the accomplishment of these 3 goals occurs. Jesus fulfilled prophecies from the moment he was conceived and born, but did not fulfill “everything that is written” until he died and rose again that week. Jesus preached the good news of the kingdom of God throughout his whole ministry, but the news didn’t come true until he paid for our sins on the cross. And Jesus often sought out and saved people from their sins and illnesses during his ministry, but His healing and saving work would not be complete until he drank the cup of God’s wrath on the cross, and then rose again, defeating death. As the gospel writer, John, tells us, Jesus’ whole life and ministry was leading towards this week, the week where he would finally say, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23) and, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
So, we see that the last week of Jesus’ life is the culmination of not just his 30+ year life and ministry, but of God’s plan of redemption that was announced as far back as Genesis 3. It does then, feel important to spend time looking closely at each day of that week, seeing what each gospel writer records in an effort to show us how Jesus lived his last days knowing that his time on earth was short. Each word is a treasure, a memory that honors a true story, remembers supernatural, life-changing events that really happened. When we read the gospels, we remember, we honor, we treasure his life in a way that can be forgotten if we merely depend on our memory of the stories, or a pastor’s sermon, or even a devotional like this.
The following devotionals will summarize what is recorded about that day in the 4 gospels in a way that hopefully brings these stories to life for us, and reminds us of why they matter. There will also be references for extra readings from all 4 gospels that apply to that day. I know we are often short on time, and I struggle with that too. But I encourage you to carve out time during this Holy Week to read these devotionals slowly and thoughtfully. Even more, I hope you can go to the Bible and read and meditate on the 4 gospel accounts for yourself. For these are the words God himself has given us about Jesus- they are the very words of eternal life (John 6:68).
Blessings,
Stephanie