Holy Week

I was recently at a conference where there was a conversation between a Christian apologist and a leader of a local atheist organization. The main thing that struck me about it was that in the two hours that the men spoke, the name of Jesus was not mentioned once. This, I judged, was a failure.

For the Christian, the one thing that matters is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. It is from this reality that all other matters of our faith follow: we believe and obey Christ because He rose. We can argue about everything else and often we do. But the Resurrection is not in that category. Christians around the world call this week Holy Week because it was the last week that Jesus lived in his non-glorified body. It is holy because it is set apart: without this week, we would not gather as Christ-followers. It would be pointless according to Paul: for “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17) 

It was a week of profound suffering, as the eternal and enfleshed Son of God marched to the cross. Beginning with his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, Jesus approached the completion of his mission to unite His people to Himself. The week prepares Jesus (and us) for Friday and Saturday, the darkest days in human history. On Friday, the greatest injustice of all takes place: the death of the only truly innocent person to ever live at the hands of the state. On Holy Saturday, a mind-shattering paradox becomes true: The One who was, is and will always be God was dead according to the flesh.

But on Sunday, victory is won. Sin, Death and the Devil are defeated! The stone is rolled away and Jesus is not there. Why? Because He is risen! The forces of evil marshalled all that they could against the Son of God: mocking, ridicule, abuse, torture and the sins of the world! And our Savior absorbed it all because of His love for you. The Lord wished to share even God’s glory with you, but the only way for him to do it was to remove the greatest obstacle: our rebellion. And He did so not through cataclysmic judgment but by dying.

Thus, this week, we celebrate and meditate. I encourage each of us to spend this week considering the goodness of Jesus, both in quiet and in celebration. Each of the days of this week, consider what the Lord has done for you. Gather with the people of God to be reminded. Consider what He bore for your sake. Consider that when He went to the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing that He would soon undergo death, an experience entirely foreign to the divine experience, He prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He submitted His human will to the divine will, setting His face toward your salvation. But that work is not just something that He attempted. It is work that He completed. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

This is the week that matters.

Written by Malcolm Foley, Ph.D.

Pastor, Mosaic Waco

Special Advisor to the President for Equity and Campus Engagement

Baylor University