PALM SUNDAY
“Go into that village over there,” he told them. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.“
Mark 11:2
Jesus is “inefficient”.
The God-man is born knowing and growing with an exhaustive understanding of - what we like to call - his “task” on earth. His mission, His directive. His end goal (as we so often like to say). Yet, when I truly look at God incarnate on earth - let alone his final week walking, crying, and dying among men - it is a life divorced from an efficient, end-goal mindset. There is a beauty here - one stemming only from the One who codified creativity - that illuminates a technicolor, multidimensional mural of the Father’s heart.
Jesus is seen ascending Jerusalem at the beginning of Mark 11. He instructs his disciples to secure a less-than-speedy form of transportation. Yes - he trots up through Jerusalem on a slow - dare I say tricycle of an animal. He doesn’t harness chariots of fire. Remember, “nothing was created except through him” (John 1:3). Why does He not choose a more worthy, efficient, persuasive instrument to carry him to his “holy assignment.” If we’re honest, Jesus would be deemed “inefficient” by most of the standards we hold.
And what happens? A moment of divine revelation. An instant when those - the commoners whom the Father so loves - catch a glimpse of who the man atop the colt is. Their response: to pave His path with the shirts off their backs. Such divine “slowness” elicited one of the most profound manifestations of divine noticing in scripture. We must grasp this - that Christ, limitless in creativity and means, rides a colt in front of us, knowing full well we’ll ask for the release of Barabas in a week’s time. Why? So that we may notice Him. So that we may behold him if even for a moment of splendor and God-given orientation. So that we may be moved to give what meager gifts we bear because we perceive how precious he is.
HOLY MONDAY
The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.” Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” Mark 12:32-34
Honesty. It is difficult to encounter the Lord when we are not honest with Him and ourselves.
At the end of Mark 11, Jesus has a conversation with the Pharisees over who gave him the authority to do what he does. He asks them who gave John the Baptist his authority. When they answer, “We don’t know”, he replies, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things”. Can you imagine what revelation they could have received from Jesus had they admitted they answered ‘I don’t know’ because they were so afraid of the consequences of a truthful answer?
Self-preservation is at the heart of the religious leaders’ questions and answers. So it often is with us. When I am unhappy with my unwillingness to hear what he is saying, to face what he is asking, I will run, ignore, pretend, rationalize, and hide, because, out of the desire to save my own life, I am afraid to be honest with Him.
The scribe in the passage above had the courage to listen to what Jesus said. Instead of dissembling, he recognized and admitted that Jesus spoke truth. And Jesus, who could see into his heart, brought him revelation, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” I suspect, that after the Lord was risen, this was one Pharisee who received resurrection life!
We were made to receive His life by giving up our own, for Jesus says, “Those who love their life in this world will lose it.” (John 12:25) Until the point where I lay down trying to protect my life, He cannot help me. But when I turn and honestly bring all my concerns and fears to him, then he can bring revelation, he can extend his mercy and grace, his life and resurrection power. He can help me and bring me everything I need.
Holy Tuesday
“Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near.” - Mark 13:28
During Holy Week, Jesus spoke often of watchfulness. When instructing His disciples, He looked to the future: not only to His imminent betrayal, death, and resurrection, but to an apocalyptic future full of deception, persecutions, anguish, stars falling, and ultimately, the truth of His glory shining for all to see. Just days before the cross, He spoke of the Second Coming.
Jesus illustrated this discernment around sacrilegious desecration, false messiahs, and heavenly signs. This watchfulness culminated with the example of perceiving a fig tree’s buds and leaves appear.
I’ve often marked the beginning of spring when the daffodils begin to bloom in my backyard. This year, I mostly missed it. One day there was nothing there. On a later day, I noticed that the leaves had grown a few inches above the ground. A couple weeks later, I looked out and saw the bright yellow daffodils in full bloom. I’d missed the moment.
What level of watchfulness does it take to observe a bud forming on a branch? It takes more than a glance out the window every few days. We need to be present with the tree, right there with it, not far away. We must be attentive, looking for the very first signs of growth. We stand in stillness, like living time-lapse cameras, eyes fixed on the object of our observation. Inwardly, our hearts rejoice in the waiting, chasing away all weariness, anxiety, or boredom.
Peace comes when we wrap our lives, our beings, around the truth of the unfolding salvation of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit fills us, grows us, and makes us like Him. We find joy as we wait and watch.
HOLY WEDNESDAY
Mark 14:8 - “She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time.”
Why did Jesus endure the cross only to rise again and defeat death? He’s Jesus - the ultimate healer, the all-powerful Son of God. Could he not simply fix the problem of sin in another less painful way?
The story of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha brings up similar questions. Jesus purposefully delays himself, allowing Mary and Martha’s dear brother to die before their very eyes. The pain and loss they did not have to experience!
“Jesus, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” Mary says, with tears in her eyes, I imagine. Instead of shaming or responding to her with truth, Jesus weeps.
Jesus is about to reveal his glory and power to her by raising Lazarus back to life. He’s about to fix her problem. Weeping with Mary is unnecessary, it's impractical - it won’t fix her problem.
Jesus “wastes'' time experiencing the depth of Mary’s despair with her. And in doing so, he reveals more than his glory to Mary (and to us) - he reveals his extravagant, attentive love.
Jesus does indeed fix her problem. And Mary searches for a way to respond to the gratuitous tears she witnessed. She unashamedly walks into a room she isn’t supposed to be in and out of adoration and thanksgiving, anoints Jesus with the most grandiose item she could access. Mary’s act of extravagance was confusing to those around her. How could she waste that expensive perfume on Jesus? Jesus isn’t extravagant.
“She has done a beautiful thing to me…she has done what she could,” Jesus responds. Mary could never match the excessive attention and grace she received from Christ in her despair - but she did what she could to respond back to it. She intuitively made the connection to Jesus’s eventual burial, yes, but in her heart, Mary was moved to respond to Jesus’s unrestrained love for her - a foretelling of his most profound act of generosity to come.
MAUNDY THURSDAY
Mark 14:18 - “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with me here will betray me.”
We love to invite people to our table. A couple weeks ago I had gone to great lengths to have someone for dinner, and it turned out to be a situation that challenged my capacity to love - I was deeply offended and struggled through how to let it go all week.
In reflecting on this passage, it occurred to me just how much relational trauma Jesus endured in his last days. He was betrayed by a trusted brother, abandoned by everyone, including his intercessory prayer team in the garden, and he had to lead a fierce conversation with his disciples - his church - about a traitor operating in their midst.
“My soul is crushed to the point of death,” Jesus says, and they haven’t even attacked his body yet. It’s enough trauma and offense for any of us to need multiple lifetimes of therapy and healing prayer.
A few chapters earlier, Jesus says, “But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against…” (Mark 11:25)
“But how?!” my soul asked Jesus after that difficult meal.
“Keep your heart soft. The Spirit that was in me at the Passover meal is in you. It’s the Spirit of continually offering love in the face of offense. It’s releasing a spirit of orphanhood, because the resurrection means you are eternally loved. You can trust my path because I have gone before you… I sat in that very same seat at that very same meal.”
Thank you Jesus that I was designed to love. In those last days, you never stopped offering love. May that same spirit that was in you, be in me today.
GOOD FRIDAY
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. A sign announced the charge against him. It read, “The King of the Jews.” Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.
Mark 15:25-27
MacBeth. Solomon. Henry V (the Shakespeare one). Alexander the Great.
Some of these kings are real, some are fiction. All grasped immense power, and all were leveled to nothing more than dust in death.
So what of a king who embraces death?
Today we observe a Christ dying between common criminals: he goes gently, no empire falls, his followers hide, he bleeds and suffers, and his body breaks as that of any man.
This Jesus doesn’t save himself. Instead, God lets His subjects kill Him. Still, he promises eternal victory: a resurrected savior and resurrection of our own hearts.
But why? Why would an all-powerful king join us in mortal flesh and let himself go like a lamb to the slaughter?
He's sending a message. He's teaching us His ways in an utterly visceral fashion.
He’s telling us true life, true resurrection isn’t found in this world or in clinging to it; that death = life; that to give oneself away is the only way to find actual purpose. It’s a confounding picture, the utter foolishness of God.
God’s kingdom is upside down, defying instinct, even reason — where leaders limp on crutches; where mourners are filled with bottomless joy; where only the most poor may inherit priceless pearls; where His followers would rather rest as a John Doe in an unmarked grave than in a cathedral or frescoed sarcophagus.
Christ enters a holy city atop a donkey. Days later he’s buried in secret. His call isn’t to self-preservation, it’s to death; to self; to the world; to pursuit of influence and authority. It’s to trod a road that leads away from culture’s promise of a “good life” This is His way, His kingdom.
In the shadow of a bloody Cross, we wait for His triumphant return.
HOLY SATURDAY
'Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last. ' Mark 15:37
'When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!” ' Mark 15:39
I never would have thought that death was part of the design of being a Christian. The design to die daily to ourselves is shocking. We are designed to lay it all down. All of our suffering; all of our pleasures; all of our dreams for security. If all is given to Him, what makes us so afraid to let go?
In the midst of our suffering & in what feels like death is often the invitation to see that Jesus is right there with us. Holding our hand. Saying it's ok to feel. The beauty in life is allowing ourselves to feel pain with the Lord. Allowing Him to flood all those moments of suffering as he reveals that He has always been there. He’s holding you tenderly, walking you through it all.
Like the Roman soldier who saw Jesus on the cross, death and suffering reveal to us where we find our life source. It shows us where we look for this life: do we serve the merciful God or our bank account? The meek Messiah or our political party? The loving Father or our Instagram feed? For that soldier and for us, the question is: who do you align yourself with today?
Megan Fate Marshman said, “The way of trust is the way of honesty.” Trust in the Lord is making a commitment to accept life’s reality honestly. When we finally are honest, we trust we not only find the marvelous beauty of death; but also that resurrection is waiting on the other side.
Father, teach us to lay it all down and accept our honesty with you today. Walk us on that narrow path of death to what we trust so we may find you and learn to trust in your death to resurrection love.
RESURRECTION SUNDAY
Jesus has been killed. He is dead and buried. And yet, is He? It's an upside-down kingdom, a mystery to behold. It's this mystery and kingdom we are beckoned unto. There is a calling to us all: Jesus’ story is our story. Will we lay our lives down for others, give up home, name, prestige, fame, and glory all for the sake of the Father… that we may die to ourselves? And here's the beauty: we will rise again, ALIVE in Him. That same resurrection power that Christ modeled in his life, death, and resurrection- is the life He has called us to. That mystery of it is not me who lives- but He who lives in me? This is the life of resurrection. This is the Good News.
There are wild moments in scripture, filled with the provision, rescuing, and glory of God for His people. But none is such as the awe that is inspired when Jesus is found alive. It IS He. I can hear the chatter on the streets. What a shock they must have felt. What awe must have transpired? The most radical and impossible thing has just happened, and yet, “Did you hear? Did you hear He is alive?!”. “Do you know what God has done?”. The resurrected king. Came back, not to rule over and throw out the government, but to hold the keys of hell, and open the gates of heaven for all, to anoint those on the earth who believe to love like He has loved, heal as He has healed, deliver as He did. Jesus is the perfect example of a life of love lived for all to see.
This is the message of Christ, the life we are to live. "...And I was handed over to death for those who have sinned, so that they may return to the truth and sin no more, and so they may inherit the spiritual, incorruptible, and righteous glory in heaven".
Throw off your grave clothes beloved:
He is Risen.
He is Risen Indeed.