READ: Matthew 21.1-11

REFLECT

The week between Palm Sunday and Easter is called Passion Week or Holy Week and describes the final days of Jesus’ life on earth before his death and resurrection.

This week, we invite the community to “Consider Him” by reflecting on the ways Jesus reveals himself in his final days. Palm Sunday begins this focus, depicting Jesus as king as he enters Jerusalem. As you read Matthew 21.1-11, notice how Jesus’ kingship is defined simply: “Look, your King is coming to you.” We urge you to consider what this unexpected kingship truly means.

From the days of old until the present, kings do not just show up in your neighborhood. They remain in palaces and edifices of power and prestige. But not this king. He is coming to you. Can you imagine the sheer overwhelm of the people to think a king was showing up for them? Would you be ready to host a king in your home today?

Now remember, the king for the Jewish people was not just a political leader who would save them through his victory and save them from their enslavement. He was a spiritual king who would reestablish God’s presence in the midst of their lives. The effect of this king coming to them was not merely the overthrowing of Rome’s oppression, but the reorientation of their lives around God again, instead of another ruler.

His entry and arrival in their lives were disruptive, as his kingdom is one of peace, wholeness, and humility. Our king comes low. And he’s not afraid to get down in the messes of our lives. So maybe you don’t think your house is ready to host the King in it. But he’s not afraid of the dirty clothes on the ground. In fact, he will walk right over them to get to you.

His arrival is remembered in their exclamation today of “Hosanna,” which means, “save now.” This king is coming to save you through his humility, right here and right now.

PRAYER

Jesus, humble king, we ask that you would bombard our homes with your coming. This disruptive arrival invites us to show you all the things that need your saving. Lord, help us not be overwhelmed by the amount of saving we need. And let us find the humility of you coming to us in our mess and lifting our eyes to consider the kind of King you are. One of nearness, not distance.  Amen.

READ: Matthew 21:12-17

REFLECT

Can I be so honest with you? Sometimes I feel that with the pace of my own life, I might not have even noticed that the temple was being misused if I were living in Jesus’s time. The temple - the place where heaven and Earth overlap - was supposed to be a place of prayer. At that time, it was observed as a den of robbers. But Jesus doesn’t just sweep it under the rug to keep the status quo. He doesn’t dismiss it because he’s got a meeting to go to or a house to clean. He notices – and he flips a few tables over and restores the temple to its rightful purpose. 

Consider the temple.

After he restores the temple, he doesn’t hurry on to the next thing. Scripture says he notices a need and begins healing. The temple was about wholeness. 

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Consider the temple.

The text then highlights the lowly: “And the children shout, “Hosanna Son of David!” At that, the chief priests and the teachers of the law are indignant and ask Jesus if he hears them: “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants, You, Lord, have called forth your praise?” “Yes,” replied Jesus. 

He notices who is in his temple. 

Jesus didn’t just live life moving from one task to the next. He wasn’t too busy to see what was going on in the place where people were supposed to be able to meet God, the temple. On this Holy Monday, I wonder if we could take a few moments to consider the ultimate temple: Jesus, who came down to Earth to save and restore us lowly children back to the Father. 

Consider that because of Jesus’s sacrifice, we can now be in the presence of God all the time. He cleared the temple to welcome us in. No more misuse. Consider that as followers of Jesus, we are now mini temples, hopefully enacting heaven all over the earth. Consider that Jesus loves you so much, he notices you.

Questions to consider:

• Would I have noticed if the temple was being misused in Jesus’s time?

• What could I notice today that could bring about restoration, healing, and praise?

PRAY

O God, you are so generous and patient, yet you do not sweep things under the rug. You wait for me, despite my hurrying and misprioritizing. This week, help me carve out space to notice you because nothing compares to union with you. Help me notice what is being misused in my life, what is being restored, and all that deserves praise. Your grace is sufficient for me. Make me your temple, Jesus. Amen.

READ: Matthew 21:23-46

REFLECT

After entering Jerusalem during the final week before the cross, Jesus returns to the temple and begins teaching. It is not long before the leading priests and elders confront Him: “By what authority are you doing these things?” (Matthew 21:23). The question is striking because these leaders were responsible for guiding God’s people. Yet instead of leading with truth, they challenge the authority of the One who embodies it.

Jesus responds by asking about the authority of John the Baptist. The leaders quietly reason through their options. If they say John’s authority came from heaven, they must admit their failure to believe him. If they deny it, they risk angering the crowd, who believed John was a prophet. Unwilling to face either reality, they settle for a convenient answer: “We don’t know.”

Many in the crowd see Him as a prophet. The leaders recognized what Jesus was claiming about Himself, yet instead of humbly considering it, they rejected the possibility that it was true. Though they answered the moral questions correctly, they responded with anger rather than repentance, rejecting the authority He embodied.

Then Jesus quotes from Psalm 118 in the Tanakh, the Jewish Scriptures these leaders had studied their entire lives:

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

Cornerstone: the foundational stone that determines the structure, alignment, and stability of everything built upon it.

Jesus speaks using the Scriptures they know so well. The builders, the leaders of God’s people, are rejecting the very foundation God is laying before them. The stone they reject will soon become the foundation of God’s saving work through His death and resurrection. No other foundation will stand, a truth later echoed in 1 Corinthians 3:11.

To consider the Cornerstone during Passion Week is to pause and examine our hearts. It is possible to recognize truth and speak the right answers, yet still resist Christ’s authority. The invitation is simple but searching: will we merely acknowledge the truth, or will we build our lives upon the One God has made the cornerstone?

Reflective Questions:

1. Do I truly acknowledge Christ as the foundation of my life, or am I still trying to build on something else?

2. What would it look like today for Jesus to truly be the cornerstone of how I live?

PRAY

Lord Jesus, You are the cornerstone God has laid. Search my heart and guard it from the pride that hears truth but refuses to respond. Give my heart humility to recognize Your authority and courage to build my life upon You. Align my heart, my thoughts, my words, and my actions with You. Help me not only to see the truth, but to build my life upon You, the true foundation. Amen.

READ: Matthew 24:1-36

"So if someone tells you, 'Look, the Messiah is out in the desert,' don't bother to go and look. Or, 'Look, he is hiding here,' don’t believe it. For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes." Mt 24:26-27

REFLECT

In this passage, Jesus describes the end times and his second coming. It is clear that in those days, the world will grow darker and the hearts of men will harden. Yet in the midst of a chaotic world, there is a deep hunger, a holy hunger, a longing for a Messiah. The lingering question then stands: Who is the Messiah?

The tension of dark times is whether we can hear Jesus calling us not to be deceived by the explicit and loud displays of power or heed the words of influential tongues. There’s another story from Passion Week that helps us consider who the Messiah is.

There were two disciples on the road to Emmaus who were disheartened because they believed Jesus to be a prophet, but did not believe Him to be the Messiah, for He had been crucified. Jesus appeared to them, but they did not recognize Him, for He had concealed his physical form. Instead, He spoke of Himself in the unveiling of Scripture. When they saw Him in the scriptures, they came alive. These disciples then ended their journey by sharing a meal with this veiled stranger. They had a meal with this man. And in how he blessed the meal, they recognized Jesus again!

Let us consider Jesus in the Word and communion with Him now. Partaking of Him in our everyday lives through both the Scriptures and through walking with Him. It is through these two conversations that our hearts will know who He really is, the Messiah. Only He died and rose again so we could experience salvation now. If we continually behold Him, we will see He is presently with us as much as He will be to come.I love their reflection of their interaction with him, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us…" And that’s the experience we need to know if we have met the Messiah through the Scriptures and through our communing experiences with him.

PRAY

Jesus, we look forward to your second coming in all your glory and wonder! I pray we will not be a people who are deceived, but we will be a people who seek to continually behold You in Your living word. Amen.

READ Matthew 26: 1-75

On Maundy Thursday, we pause to consider Jesus’ final moments prior to his betrayal and arrest. 

In the preceding days, Jesus spent much of his time teaching the apostles about the Kingdom of Heaven. He does so knowing what is next, as powers seen and unseen are moving and shifting to take his life. Jesus doesn’t mince words when He reiterates to the disciples, “As you know, Passover begins in two days, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” (Matt. 26:2 NLT)

With His death imminent, Jesus gathers his band of misfits and social outcasts for a final celebration of the Passover meal. While He reclines at a table with His twelve closest companions and friends, knowing one of them will soon betray Him, he shares something new:

“As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.’ And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, ‘Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Mark my words - I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.“ (Matt 26:26-29)

How did the disciples experience this moment? Was it an overwhelming mix of emotions and thoughts? Confusion and discomfort? Fear and sadness? Or perhaps an inescapable peace as they received the body and blood directly from the hands of their Creator? ​

Just as Jesus broke the bread and distributed it to his disciples, His body would soon be broken - whipped, spit upon, and spiked with thorns. Just as He poured out a cup of wine, Jesus shed His blood as a holy sacrifice for all humanity.

But first, Jesus freely gives his physical nature to be consumed. His body represents His substance and His blood as the life force that cleanses us. When we engage in communion, we receive Jesus. We practice resurrection and new life to come. 

Consider Jesus, the one who gave it all, the one who came down from Heaven, fully man - flesh and blood -  and fully God - divine in nature and spirit. We receive everything because Jesus gave it all.

Reflective Questions:

• Where in my life am I receiving Jesus, His nourishment and restoration, with open hands and an open heart?

•  What does it look like to give “my everything” to the One who gave it all? 

Embodiment/Prayer:

Pause now for a moment to reflect and still your body, heart, and spirit. Reflect on the weightiness of the offering Jesus is presenting to you (and all of us), today and every day, through His demonstration of complete and total sacrifice. 

Open your hands to receive. Consider Him who became fully human in order to give us life, and life to the full. Close your eyes and picture yourself reclining with Jesus at a table prepared before you. Consider His hands reaching out to offer you bread and wine, His Body and His Blood. 

PRAY

God, we thank you for your life given freely to us, your body as nourishing bread, and your blood as cleansing wine. Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts. 

READ: Matthew 27:1-56

Can you remember a time when words were used as weapons against you? A parent's anger at home. A public humiliation in the cafeteria or gym. A coworker who hit 'reply all' to make an example of you. The physical brutality of the cross is hard to relate to, staring at a screen all day in 2026, but the power and pain of words I can understand.

Consider how Jesus was also tormented by words on Good Friday.

"He saved others — he can't save himself! King of Israel, is he? Then let him get down from that cross... Even the two criminals crucified next to him joined in the mockery." (Matt. 27:41-44 MSG)

Proverbs 18:21 tells us that "life and death is in the power of the tongue.” They were wielding that power against him. Taking his own identity and using it as the setup for their jokes. “If you are the Son of God…”

Verbal abuse leads to a form of suffering.  And how we suffer reveals much.

You may suffer silently (as Jesus did after all), but in self-pity, turning inward, rehearsing the wound.

You may suffer loudly by defending yourself, correcting, or setting the record straight.

Or (my personal favorite) you may move on quickly, finding ways to numb out, refusing to feel it at all.

But consider him:

Jesus, in his humanity, felt the pain of those words. He didn’t yell back, he didn’t stop believing he was the son of God, he didn’t nope out.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Oswald Chambers calls this “the will to suffer.” Not passivity, not victimhood, not defensiveness. No supernatural shield protects him from the pain. But staying there, suffering through it.

We have all been wounded by words. Good Friday shows us a different way.

REFLECT

What is your default when words are used against you?  What does Jesus’ endurance reveal about your own?

PRAY

Jesus, you felt every word. And yet you endured through it. Teach me that endurance. Not succumbing, not fighting back, not escaping. Bring forth in me the holy fruits of suffering. Your Kingdom in us. Amen.

READ: Matthew 27:57-66

Matthew 27: 59-60

“So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean, fine linen, and placed it in his new tomb, which he had cut into the rock. He left after rolling a great stone against the entrance of the tomb.”

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When I think of a tomb, I think of emptiness, loss, hopelessness, darkness…void. How could Jesus, the Son of Man, the giver of hope, peace, and life, be in such a desolate place? Jesus and darkness don’t go together. To the unbelieving world, this was it for Jesus. They didn’t believe a miracle could take place. To those unbelievers, the tomb defined Jesus as beyond saving and incapable of resurrection. The guards even asked Pilate for permission to seal the tomb.

Matthew 27:63-64

“…Sir, we remember that while this deceiver was still alive, he said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give orders that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come, steal him, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead…”

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In this dark tomb, shut off and sealed from the world, could a miracle really occur? Maybe you have been in a dark, isolated place due to loss, sickness, marriage struggles, dreams deferred...you name it. How could God possibly be in the middle of your situation?

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Hear me now and hear me clearly: God is not uncomfortable with your mess. Your pain. Your frustration. Your questions. God of all people knows that this is the place where the biggest miracles can take place. When it feels like the tomb has been sealed and all has been called a loss. Surely resurrection couldn’t happen in this place, but CONSIDER HIM.

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Born of the Virgin Mary. The most unlikely and humble of circumstances. CONSIDER HIM. A jealous king attempted to take his life as a toddler, but his father Joseph had a dream from God that warned him to flee just in time. CONSIDER HIM. Found in the temple at 12 years old, sitting among teachers, listening and asking questions that astounded them. CONSIDER HIM. 40 days and nights in the desert, tempted by satan, but did not give in. CONSIDER HIM. Found in an intimate, vulnerable moment with God in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking for the cup of suffering to pass. CONSIDER HIM. Submitted to God's plan for the salvation of all through death on the cross. CONSIDER HIM.

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The tomb did not define the Son of Man, and it doesn’t define you. Jesus’ life was full of defining moments where God showed up. The providential protection, direction, and promise of God were beautifully articulated throughout Jesus’ story. The tomb is not the ending to this story. It’s moments before the miracle…

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Reflection:

Consider Him in your story: Where has God shown up in your life? What are some of the defining moments of your life?

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Maybe take a few minutes to reflect on your life. Think of those moments when you cried out to God, and He answered. Maybe those times when you didn’t see a way forward, but now you can look back and see how God showed up and got you through. Maybe you can see how those moments have made you stronger today. You will hopefully see that God isn’t just evident in our life highlights, but He is in the hard stuff too, and He is not afraid of our mess. He is faithful and will see us through.

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In the passage we read today, there were two women sitting outside the tomb. They were facing the tomb, waiting for the miracle.

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Consider yourself in this season. Are you like the women at the tomb, positioning yourself to witness a miracle for someone else? A family member, a friend, an acquaintance, or maybe a spouse. If that is you today, then I encourage you to stop and say this prayer.

Prayer: God of my heart, I stand here today believing for a miracle for [say their name]. You know exactly what they need right now. You know their every thought, their questions, and their frustrations. You have been with them since the beginning. You have walked with them and know them intimately. I submit my worries and concerns to you, knowing full well that you are the God of miracles and there is not one crevice of this earth that you could not reach. I pray for resurrection life over [say their name] in Jesus’ name, amen.

Or maybe you are experiencing a season where you have felt hopeless, frustrated, lonely, dreams have been deferred, maybe your faith has taken a hit, and you need resurrection life. If that is you today, then I stand with you right now. I encourage you to say this prayer. 

Prayer: God of my weary heart, come now. Breathe life into my situation. Help me to see how you are working through this. Remind me of your promises. Renew my strength and trust in you today in Jesus’ name, amen

READ: Matthew 28:1-20

While recounting the crucifixion of Christ, all four Gospel authors make note of a shared detail: the presence of a group of women. Present through the God-man’s unparalleled agony – an agony far surpassing Roman-branded torture of the time – an agony of destitution. We also know John was present and remained beside Mary, the mother of Jesus, but he is the sole man named amongst crucifixion witnesses. Besides John, the Gospels note the multiple Marys and “many other women” present – those who had “followed [Jesus] and ministered to him” (Matt. 27:55). Not even Peter – the rock on whom Christ would build his church (Matt. 16:18) – is counted among those who chose to stay with the bludgeoned Messiah.

This is hard to hold. How is it that the 10 other disciples – whom we so admire and think of as ‘the best of us,’ abandoned Jesus – their faith – quite literally? It’s safe to say it has something to do with fear – ultimately a self-preserving, pain adversityso poignant that it betrays the best intentions of one’s true self. The point here is not the condemnation of the disciples. Rather, and much more beautiful is the question: what kept the women, the Marys and the “many” others, at the site of execution? 

The women’s presence is astounding. They exhibit an ethos of endurance as if they know what pain is, but more importantly, that there is something in its embrace – that even if that pain leads to death (Phil. 2:8), it cannot shame or condemn. That there be far more important priorities than self preservation – that there may be a good in the surrender of bodily and societal autonomy. 

The women’s faith isn’t death-defying — it’s unequivocally death-embracing. And HERE is the crux of it all: THEY are the ones who experience resurrection first. THEY encounter the fully animate Christ who they watched die three days prior. They had an unprecedented sensibility to “count everything worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:8). And in doing so, they were the first ones to share in the resurrection — their grief replaced with a folded linen shroud – finding not the slain, but a “gardener” (John 20:15). 

Consider the pangs of both Christ and the women who shared in his suffering. It inextricably contextualizes the resurrection – the risen dead.

This Easter, meet Jesus in his suffering – don’t leave all the ground-zeros. He’s there.  When you come looking for him in the mornings — especially the mornings to which the residue of trauma and loss clings – he will surprise you, most often as a gardener.

Consider Considering by N.T. Reynolds 

settling estates
and
keeping promises,

the preoccupations
of the heart. the
often silent things,
swimming beneath
the surface.

consider: the
dying Christ
and
the women at Golgotha
and
the mourning mother,
and
the healed Mary
watching
an afflicted healer.

so, we know the pang
of
thwarted promises, and
lie still, deafened by
the cacophony of agony. 

but,
Love. 

love is the residue
lingering long
after: 

children
vows
faiths

are made
broken
and mended.

consider the Christ
who walked among men
and knew
what was elected for him. 

consider considering
Christ is right and
your semantics, wrong,
and
the shroud folded
surprisingly well.