DAY 4: THE HIGH PRIESTLY PRAYER
Scripture Passage: John 17:1-26

 

HOLY WEEK TIMELINE:

ON WEDNESDAY:
• THE CHIEF PRIESTS AND SCRIBES PLOTTED TO KILL JESUS (LUKE 22:1-6).
• JUDAS ISCARIOT AGREED TO BETRAY JESUS FOR THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER (MATTHEW 26:14-16).

 

We don’t always appreciate how amazing prayer really is. On the one hand, it’s quite simple. After all, it’s just having a conversation with God. On the other hand, though, prayer is one of the most astounding things in the world. After all, IT’S HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH GOD. The all-powerful, all-knowing Creator of the universe allows us to talk with Him. Not only that, He actually invites us to talk with Him. He wants to spend that time with us. So, shouldn’t we take advantage of that opportunity and spend as much time in prayer as possible?

 

It’s easy to answer “yes,” because we readily see that we should do that. But in reality, most of us don’t. There are probably several reasons for that, but one is that we don’t realize how essential it is for our lives. One way we know the importance of prayer is that we see it in Jesus’ own life.

 

Throughout His time on Earth, Jesus repeatedly and regularly withdrew from the crowds and took time out of His busy schedule being the Messiah to spend time in prayer. Think about that for a moment. Jesus prayed. He talked with God the Father. Jesus is God the Son. So, when Jesus prayed, it was God talking with God. Did the Son and the Father really need to spend that much time together talking? The answer is obviously yes because Jesus did it so much. It was essential to His life and should be for ours as well.

 

The Gospel writers didn’t record for us much of what Jesus said in these prayers, but that makes sense. Often no one else was there to hear them. But in John 17, right after He finished celebrating the Passover with His disciples, Jesus prayed. This prayer is the longest prayer of His recorded in all of Scripture.

 

Read John 17:1-26. Jesus offered this prayer, knowing full well He was about to face His death. He prayed these words to God the Father in His disciples’ presence so they could hear them. In these words, we’re given a unique insight into what was on Jesus’ mind as He prepared to die, and He intended for us to hear them.

 

First, Jesus asked the Father to use Him for the work He had sent Jesus to do. Jesus knew eternal life was only possible through faith in Him, but that life could also only be granted if He first paid the penalty of death owed for our sin. That was the reason He came. That was the work God the Father had given Him to do, but He would need the Father’s help to follow through with it and see it finished.

 

Second, Jesus prayed for His disciples. He had already done so much in the lives of all those who followed Him. He had taught them and revealed to them all that God the Father had given Him. Now, He was preparing to leave them, and He knew that wouldn’t be easy for them. He knew the world would hate them because it had hated Him. He had guarded them against much of that hatred during His time with them, but since He would be physically leaving Earth, they would have to face that hatred head-on. They would also need the Father’s help and His Word to continue to faithfully follow all that Jesus had taught them and to see their purpose fulfilled in the world.

 

Third, Jesus prayed for you. Yes, you. in John 17:20, He prayed, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, it’s because you heard about it through the witness of Jesus’ disciples who spread His gospel and wrote it down in the Scriptures. That means you’re one of the ones who believed in Him through their word. So, right there, on the night before He died, surrounded by Matthew and Peter and James and John and the rest, Jesus prayed for you. He asked the Father to unite us, you and I, together with them and with Him in the love of God.

 

As Jesus prepared to endure the cross, you were on His mind. Just a little while later, Jesus would be in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He would be praying again. In that prayer, He would ask God if there was any other way to accomplish His work other than dying, but ultimately said, “not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). Jesus’ prayer expressed His willingness to obey God no matter what, even if it meant suffering and dying, because it’s what the Father wanted and what you and I needed.

 

THINK ABOUT IT:
How important is prayer for you?
What are some ways you can increase your commitment to prayer?
What’s currently on your mind you need to discuss with God in prayer?

DAY 3: THE LAST SUPPER
Scripture Passage: Luke 22:14-20

 

HOLY WEEK TIMELINE:

ON TUESDAY:
• JESUS GAVE HIS DISCIPLES THE LESSON OF THE FIG TREE (MARK 11:20-26).
• HE TAUGHT MANY PARABLES (MATTHEW 21:28-22:14, 25:1-46).
• HE CHALLENGED THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES (MATTHEW 23:1-36).
• JESUS LAMENTED OVER JERUSALEM (MATTHEW 23:37-39).
• HE REVEALED THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT (MARK 12:28-34).
• JESUS FORETOLD THE END OF THE WORLD AND HIS RETURN (MARK 13:1-37).

 

There are a lot of special days we celebrate each year. Christmas. Thanksgiving. Valentine’s Day. Independence Day. Memorial Day. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Our birthdays. And, of course, Easter. Every now and then, something so monumental happens on one of these days that it changes every other time we celebrate it in the future.

 

Maybe it’s getting an especially incredible gift for Christmas, or it could be the year you had the most epic party for your birthday. It might be a vacation to Disney World you took one summer for July 4th, or finally getting a date with that special someone for Valentine’s. It could be anything, but whatever it is, it changes how you think about that day from there on out. Each year when that day rolls around again, you’re instantly reminded of what happened that one time before.

 

That has to be what it was like for all of Jesus’ disciples after they celebrated Passover with Him one last time before His death on the cross.

 

You see, for the Jewish people, Passover was like a combination of a lot of our holidays. It was like Christmas because it reminded them that God sent someone to rescue them from their captivity. It was like Easter because it reminded them of the new lease on life God had given them. It was like Independence Day because it commemorated their freedom from slavery. It was like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day because of Moses’s role in leading them to the Promised Land. It was like Memorial Day because they remembered all those who had died because they didn’t have the blood of a lamb on their doorposts. It was like Thanksgiving because of the gratitude God’s people had toward Him for all He had done. And it was like Valentine’s Day because God had done all He did for His people because of His great love for them.

 

So, Passover was a really big deal, and Jesus and His disciples had most likely all been looking forward to celebrating it together, again. However, no other Passover celebration would be the same after this last one because Jesus changed it completely.

 

Read Luke 22:14-20. The special meal that is part of Passover is called a seder, and the seder is full of symbolism meant to help the people remember the Exodus story when God delivered them out of slavery in Egypt. However, Jesus knew that what most plagued not only the Jewish people, but all people, was their slavery to sin. The whole reason He had come to this earth was so that all might have the chance to find freedom in Him. So, He took various elements of the Passover meal to help His disciples see just what it was He was about to do.

 

The bread used in the seder was unleavened, which means it didn’t have any yeast to make it rise. So, rather than being soft and fluffy, this bread was flat and crispy. During the meal, the unleavened bread would be broken and shared among everyone at the table to remind them of God’s provision for His people while they wandered in the wilderness. Jesus took this bread and broke it and shared it with His disciples, but told them, “This is my body, which is given for you.” In doing this, He showed that He was God’s ultimate provision. We have all wandered in the wilderness of our sin, unable to make our way back to God, yet God had not forgotten us. He provided the way to Him through Jesus.

 

Jesus and His disciples would have drunk from four different cups of wine during the seder. After breaking the bread, Jesus would have given them the third cup, which is known as the Cup of Redemption. Redemption means paying off a debt that is owed. When Jesus identified the wine as His blood poured out for them, He was telling His disciples that His death would pay the debt they, and we all, owed for our sin.

 

With His broken body and His shed blood, Jesus took the place of the Passover lamb and provided the way for all who would believe to be saved from certain death as a result of our sin. We all need to remember this, and more than once a year around Easter. That’s why Jesus used His last supper to establish the Lord’s Supper. Even though most of us do not celebrate Passover, we continue to reflect upon all He has done for us when we eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of Him.

 

THINK ABOUT IT:
How does the way your church celebrates the Lord’s Supper help you remember what Jesus has done for you?
Why is it so essential to ensure we have times to remember?
In what ways is Jesus like the Passover lamb?

DAY 2: WASHING THE DISCIPLES’ FEET
Scripture Passage: John 13:1-11

 

HOLY WEEK TIMELINE:

ON MONDAY:
• JESUS CURSED THE FIG TREE (MATTHEW 21:18-22).
• JESUS CLEANSED THE TEMPLE (MARK 11:15-19).

 

Have you ever been so dirty you could feel it? I’m thinking of the kind of dirty you get in the depths of the summer when it’s so hot outside the horizon shimmers. You can’t take a step outside your door without sweat beginning to pour off you. Your clothes cling to you all over. Dirt and dust and grass and everything else sticks to every bit of your skin, and your hair looks like you just got out of the pool. I’m talking about the kind of dirty you can smell on yourself. Ever been that dirty? Of course, you have. We all have.

 

When you’re that dirty, there’s nothing you want more than to get clean, and once you finally do, you realize there’s nothing like it. It’s at times like that you think to yourself that you’ve never felt better in your life than you do right then. It’s only when we fully realize just how filthy we are that we come to appreciate how good it is to be clean.

 

That’s true not only for our bodies but also our souls.

 

Read John 13:1-11. On the night before He died, Jesus gathered together with the twelve disciples, His closest followers, to observe the Feast of the Passover with them. This was a special meal that was part of a larger celebration, during which the Jewish people would remember and reflect upon God’s deliverance of them from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 12). Typically, as people arrived at a house in preparation for the meal, the host would have a servant or the lowest household member wash each guest’s feet. Why? Because they were filthy. Roads weren’t paved. They were dusty and dirty, and since most people walked around in some sort of sandals, that meant their feet were dusty and dirty, too. The Passover meal was celebrated with everyone reclining at the table, and the last thing you’d want is for someone’s nasty feet to be near your food or face.

 

However, Jesus and His disciples were celebrating their Passover meal in a borrowed room, and they certainly didn’t have any servants. It was just the thirteen of them. Clearly, Jesus would serve as the host for the meal, but since the disciples were often more concerned with who was the greatest among them (Luke 9:46), none of them jumped at the chance to fill the servant role.

 

So, Jesus did something shocking. He filled the role Himself.

 

Jesus got up and “laid aside His outer garments.” These garments would have included a prayer shawl called a tallit. For a revered religious teacher like Jesus, this tallit symbolized His authority. In removing it and laying it aside, Jesus demonstrated a giving up of His God-given authority in order to serve His followers better, an act we see echoed in Philippians 2 where the Apostle Paul wrote that Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6b-7a).

 

Jesus then washed His disciples’ feet. When it was Peter’s turn, though, he balked. He couldn’t fathom why their Lord was stooping so low. What Peter didn’t realize, of course, was that this foot washing was a symbol, a picture of the cleansing Jesus would provide for them all, a cleansing from their sins.

 

Peter gets lots of the attention here, but it’s important to take note of one other disciple in particular, Judas Iscariot, of whom “the devil had already put it into the heart . . . to betray.”

 

Jesus was well aware of Judas’ impending betrayal (v. 11), yet Jesus washed His feet anyway. He did this so that His disciples, and us, might fully understand afterward what it was He was doing.

 

You see, we’re all like Judas. We’ve betrayed our Lord and our Creator through our rebellion and disobedience. We’re covered in the filth of our sin, yet Jesus set aside His authority as God and came to earth to die that we might also be like Peter, made clean by Christ.

 

THINK ABOUT IT:
Yesterday we saw Jesus as King. What do you understand about Him now that we also see Him as a servant?
What does it mean for Jesus to make you clean?
How can you follow His example and serve others today?

DAY 1: THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY

Scripture Passage: Luke 19:28-40

 

HOLY WEEK TIMELINE:

ON PALM SUNDAY:
• JESUS ENTERED JERUSALEM RIDING A DONKEY (MATTHEW 21:1-11).
• JESUS WEPT FOR JERUSALEM (LUKE 19:41-44).
• HE VISITED THE TEMPLE AND RETURNED TO BETHANY (MARK 11:11).

 

 

We don’t know what it’s like to have a king. After all, we live in a democracy, not a monarchy. We live in a country, not a kingdom. However, we know what it’s like when one of the most powerful leaders in the world comes to town.

 

Even if we don’t live somewhere the President has ever visited in person; we’ve at least seen it online or on the news or in movies. There’s a lot of preparation that goes into that kind of visit. Streets are barricaded and shutdown. His armored car is just one in a vast motorcade escorted by police and secret service. People line the streets on both sides trying to catch a glimpse of him, some of them cheering, others shouting. It creates quite the scene.

Now, compare that scene with the one described in Luke 19. Read Luke 19:28-40. When we pick up the story in verse 28, we find Jesus completing a journey that began ten chapters ago when He determined to go to Jerusalem and fulfill the purpose for which He had come to earth in the first place (Luke 9:51). He knew full well that once He entered the gates of that city, He would set off a chain of events that would ultimately lead to His death. Yet His resolve didn’t waver. He never had the urge to flee, to try to escape. He simply put one foot in front of the other. But there were still some things that needed to be prepared.

 

Jesus sent two of His disciples ahead to secure a young donkey He could ride for the journey’s final leg. He didn’t need to do this because He was tired or His feet hurt. Actually, what He did was to fulfill a prophecy that revealed to everyone around Him just who He was. This prophecy is found in Zechariah 9:9:

 

When Jesus mounted that colt and rode into the Holy City, He revealed Himself as a king, but not just any king. He demonstrated that He was THE King, the Messiah, the One sent from God the Father to deliver and reign over His people. He was a righteous King, meaning He was perfectly right and good and just, yet along with His rightness and goodness and justness, He also brought with Him salvation for everyone who hadn’t been able to prove themselves righteous (which, if you’re keeping score, is all of us).

 

As Jesus rode into Jerusalem, He drew a crowd. Some were His followers, who fulfilled the first part of Zechariah’s prophecy with their rejoicing, praising Jesus as King, and exalting the peace and glory He alone could bring to all people. Luke wrote that these followers praised God “for all the mighty works they had seen,” works like feeding the five thousand (Matthew 14:13-21), healing the disabled (Luke 5:17-39), casting out demons (Mark 5:1-20), and raising Lazarus from the dead ( John 11:1-44). Of course, if they found all that impressive, in just a week, they were about to be blown away by the power of God in Jesus Christ.

 

This story is often called “The Triumphal Entry,” but no one present that day fully understood the triumph over sin and death Jesus was about to accomplish.

 

Still, it wasn’t all cheering and celebration. Jesus had His haters, too, and some of them confronted Him about what all His followers were saying. These religious leaders thought Jesus should silence His followers. These leaders didn’t see Jesus as their king, much less the Promised King. But Jesus let them know it didn’t matter what they thought. He was who He was. They may not have known it, but all of creation did, and if His followers didn’t give Him the worship He alone deserved, then the rocks would.

 

Jesus was the King promised to bring righteousness and salvation, and He still is.

 

THINK ABOUT IT:
What are some of the opinions about Jesus you hear from people today?
What does it mean for you to know Jesus as King?
How will you praise Him for who He is today?