Holy Week: The Most Sacred Days of the Christian Calendar

If you've been following along with my series on the Lenten season, then you already know that Lent is a time of preparation. It’s a 40-day journey of prayer, reflection and focused living that points us toward something greater.

And that "something greater"…is Holy Week!

As Christians, we often think of the season of Lent as a journey of sorts, with its final destination being Holy Week. That’s the week that recounts the so-called "passion narratives" in the New Testament Gospels. The suffering, death, and burial of Jesus Christ.

And while Easter Sunday is a celebration, let’s first walk through Holy Week itself.

Since I'm not a Bible scholar, I don't come at this from a place of expert knowledge. But in a nutshell, Holy Week is the entire week leading up to Easter, it begins on Palm Sunday and ends on Easter Sunday. Many prophecies of the Bible were fulfilled during this one week.

This is what Christianity is built on! Jesus' death and resurrection fulfilled promises God had been making, and prophets had been speaking about, for thousands of years.

Each day of Holy Week is like a step on a spiritual pilgrimage. Palm Sunday is the day that pilgrimage begins as it marks Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem on a donkey. This event is known as the Triumphal Entry.

This was prophesied in Zechariah 9:9. That means these events were foretold centuries earlier!

A donkey meant peace, not power. And when the crowds threw down their cloaks and branches, they were rolling out the welcome mat for their king. The crowd's cheering acknowledged Jesus as the long expected Messiah and King.

My takeaway from Palm Sunday is one of humility. The crowds were expecting a conquering king…and Jesus arrived on a donkey. He had nothing to prove, yet He met that expectation with something better. His holy presence.

Maundy Thursday marks the Last Supper that Jesus shares with His disciples, His betrayal by Judas Iscariot, and His arrest at the Garden of Gethsemane.

After their evening meal, Jesus washed His disciples' feet as they prepared to share in the Passover. It was a humble act of service. Jesus demonstrated by example how His disciples should serve the church.

If you’ve never washed anyone else’s feet, I can attest that it is indeed a humbling act of service. As it should always be when we do God’s will.

The word “Maundy’ comes from the Latin root meaning "commandment" or "mandate." And on that Thursday, Jesus gave His disciples a new commandment, which is why we use the term Maundy.

Afterwards, the disciples went with Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus prayed and an angel came to give Him strength. There, He taught His disciples, (and us!), what to do when we come to the end of our own strength and need God to help us press on.

In the garden, Jesus fully knew what was coming…yet He chose to surrender. That kind of trust in God, even in anguish, is something to reflect on long after Holy Week ends.

Good Friday commemorates Jesus' trial before Pontius Pilate. He was sentenced to torture and death by crucifixion.

As a kid, I always wondered…why is it called Good Friday? C’mon, I can’t be the only one!

The meaning of this phrase comes from an older sense of the English word “good,” meaning pious or holy. Some believe the name came from an older name, "God's Friday."

Either way, the name Good Friday is because the suffering and death of Jesus, as terrible as it was, signified God’s plan to save people from their sins. This was it, all coming to a head.

Judas, one of Jesus' own disciples, turned on Him and handed Him over to His enemies. Jesus was arrested and dragged through a series of unfair trials, first before the religious leaders, then before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and then King Herod.

After the trials, Roman soldiers beat Jesus severely. Then they forced Him to carry the heavy wooden cross He would die on through the streets of Jerusalem.

But this wasn’t defeat. Through His crucifixion, God provided salvation for mankind. This is good news!

Holy Saturday is the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Some Christians see it as the day Jesus "rested" after finishing the work of saving us.

For the disciples, that day must have been devastating. Jesus was gone. Judas had betrayed Him. Everything they had hoped for seemed lost. They were likely in shock, trying to make sense of it all.

Many churches mark Holy Saturday as a day of quiet reflection with vigils. It’s a reminder of what life would look like without the hope that Easter brings.

Have you ever waited for something? I certainly have…and I’m not very good at it.

Being in a waiting place, between the hard thing that happened and the answer that hasn't come yet, isn’t easy. But we wait because we have faith in what’s to come.

Holy Week is a time to see how much Jesus loves us. The week shows us what He was willing to go through for us, and what He ultimately accomplished when He rose from the dead.

It's so easy to rush straight to Easter. Holy Week is a time to sit with the story first.