The Week that Changed the World
“But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son...”
Galatians 4:4
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week, an annual celebration of the Week that Changed the World. In their excellent book The Final Days of Jesus, authors Andreas Kostenberger and Justin Taylor describe the first Holy Week as “the most important week of the most important person who ever lived.” This week is so important to the world that close to one-half of every Gospel account is dedicated to the final week of Jesus’ earthly life. Everything before this in scripture looks toward this week. Everything after this looks back and explains it.
Read the Gospel accounts and you will find that Jesus’ birth, life, and ministry are a constant surprise. Author Richard Hays writes, “God’s manner of revelation is characterized by hiddenness, reversal and surprise.” We come to the final week of Christ and the surprise only crescendos during the week that changed the world.
The appointed time of Jesus’ death has come and He resolutely sets his face toward Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51) Swollen to 5-6 times its normal size, Jerusalem is filled with Jewish pilgrims arriving from all over the world to celebrate the annual Passover feast. Jesus enters Jerusalem riding a donkey, fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy written over 500 years before. (Zechariah 9:9) The large crowds that followed Jesus from Galilee now throw down their coats and palm branches before Him and shout:
Original art work by Holly Hollon
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”
(Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:10)
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem both reveals and conceals like no other. Because he is a king, Jesus deserves a coronation. Because he is a king like no other, Jesus deserves a coronation like no other. And this regal coronation is full of more surprises:
Jesus doesn’t come with an army, but enters Jerusalem with a mob of peasants
He isn’t riding a white horse of victory, but riding a donkey and coming in peace
The crowds are not waving swords, but palm branches
Jesus doesn’t attack a Roman fortress; He cleanses the temple
He is not defeating oppressors; He is debating religious leaders
Instead of conquering, He is crucified
Instead of crushing, He came to be crushed.
He doesn’t offer a Passover sacrifice; He IS the final Passover sacrifice
Jesus is not a victim; he is a volunteer
Everything is turned upside down. Palm Sunday ends with Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. Jesus endorses the crowd’s claims; but He knows their hearts are wrong and He weeps. Israel’s whole history has been waiting for this moment, yet they do not recognize God coming to them, for them.
What about us? Have we recognized this King who came in ways that reverse the values of the world? Jesus came in weakness and service, not strength and force, to die as a ransom for us. This week as we prepare our hearts for Easter Sunday, why not read one of the Gospel accounts of the final days of Jesus and the Week that Changed the World?
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) And everything was turned upside down by Jesus’ death.
It was the Week that Changed the World!