by Greg Baxter
The Christian faith is unique because of Easter. The founder of every major religion except Christianity is dead and buried.
Yes, Jesus Christ died a sacrificial death but he also rose from the dead after three days. True salvation was provided by God himself through the atoning death of his Son. And his resurrection proved, among other things, his deity (John 2:19-22), the guarantee of the believer’s resurrection (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:12-14, 20; Col. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:3; Rev. 1:5), and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and resurrection power (John 14:17; Acts 2:38; Rom 6:4; 8:11-14; Eph 1:13-14, 20; Phil 3:10-16).
The final steps leading up to the most profound and far-reaching event in human history unfolded over eight days. The sequence of events in the last week in the life of our Savior’s life that lead to his death, burial, and resurrection are recorded in the four Gospels. In fact 28% of the Gospels deal with the last week of Jesus’ life. Matthew’s Gospel deals with the least at 9% and John the most at 48%. Mark’s record uses 38% of his work to report the events of Holy week and Luke spends 21% of his gospel documenting the final days of the Son of Man’s life on earth.
In dating the chronology of Holy Week I used the 33 C.E./A.D. crucifixion date as presented by several Bible scholars. Specifically I follow Harold W. Hoehner (Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ) and Darrell L. Bock’s (Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods) timeline regarding a 33 C.E./A.D. crucifixion. Their conclusions are presented in a very helpful chart and article by Pete Smith, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Kingman (Kingman, KS). Ron Minton also wrote an excellent thesis on the chronology of the life of Christ as well.
My desire is for each of us to step alongside our Savior and reflect devotionally on this pivotal week day by day, and journey with our savior as he walks towards the cross! If you have different templates from what I am presenting, then plug in the appropriate event that happened on that particular day. Let’s keep the focus on the cross not on being cross with each other over differences in chronology.
Now join me as we spend the next 15 days reflecting on Christ’s last week of activities focusing on one step, one event at a time, as a way to prepare us to celebrate the greatest event in human history; Jesus Christ is alive! He has risen from the dead!
STEP 1 — BACKSTORY
The backstory of Jesus’ journey to the cross was the final showdown between our Lord and the religious leaders. All Palestine was waiting to see if the Lord would, once again, confound the religious leaders as they tried to counter Jesus claims of being Israel’s Messiah. The people enjoyed watching the Lord completely frustrate and expose the religious leaders as being full of pride and out of touch. They had about enough of this kind of treatment and were plotting to arrest, convict, and execute Jesus during the feast. They feared that if they waited he would slip from their grip again. The leaders were terrified the entire nation would perish if they accepted Jesus as Messiah, and he established a kingdom that would threaten Rome. They reasoned that one man’s death is better than all Israel perishing. The Sanhedrin’s plot included killing Lazarus (1) because it proved Christ’s claims. Then they would arrest Jesus, put him on trial, and finally execute him (2).
To read the expanded article along with references, click here.