The wrenching sorrow of Good Friday and the hidden victory of Holy Saturday have led us to today, the most important day in the Christian calendar.

On Holy Monday, we saw how Jesus challenged the priests and elders in the Second Temple, telling them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” At the time, they mocked Him, recalling all the time and energy it had taken to construct the building.

But He had not been speaking of their earthly temple, doomed to destruction within a few years. God’s presence was not within its bricks and mortar, but within Christ Himself: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” St. John tells us —and it was that flesh, that temple of God’s spirit, that Christ raised up on Easter Sunday.

‘HE IS RISEN!’

The first to witness the miracle were the women who loved Jesus—Mary, His mother, Mary Magdalene, and others, who travelled to the place where St. Joseph of Arimathea had laid him at dawn, expecting to anoint His tortured body, if they could find a way to enter the tomb.

Yet the tomb they found was already empty, the great stone rolled away. No trace of Him was found—only two radiant angels, who told them, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.”

Among the disciples, the Risen Christ appeared first to St. Peter, then to the rest of the apostles, and to “above five hundred brethren at once,” according to St. Paul, with many of these eyewitnesses still living to bear witness at the time of his writing.

Last, He revealed Himself to St. Paul—then Saul of Tarsus, a fanatical persecutor of the first Christians—on the road to Damascus, converting him from a bitter enemy to one of the most zealous apostles.

A GOSPEL FOR ALL NATIONS.

After the Resurrection, Christ entrusted the apostles with the Great Commission: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” He said. 

So it would be as He had said in the earthly temple, before the Crucifixion: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations,” whether Jewish or Gentile. (Mark 11:17, KJV).

HAPPY EASTER!

Image by Jean-Pol GRANDMONT.

Good Friday, the sixth day of Holy Week, brought the bitter fruit of Judas’s betrayal. Following his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, dragged before priests and rulers, and enduring the Cross to fulfill His mission, Jesus faced a whirlwind of trials, mockery, and torment.

First, Jesus was hauled before Caiaphas, the high priest, for what amounted to a show trial. Silent before His accusers, Jesus spoke only when Caiaphas demanded, “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.”

“Thou hast said,” Jesus replied, “nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven”—a clear declaration, as Caiphas and the priests saw it, of His divinity.

Enraged, Caiaphas rent his robes, crying, “He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses?” The priests set their minds on His execution, but they lacked the authority to pass the sentence themselves.

PILATE AND HEROD. 

Caiaphas first turned Jesus over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. The priests branded Jesus a rebel, claiming He declared Himself king, and called for a death sentence. But Jesus told the Roman, “My kingdom is not of this world.” An uneasy Pilate attempted to pass the decision on to the Romans’ client king, Herod Antipas, hoping to sidestep the situation.

Herod—son of the bloodthirsty Herod the Great—was thrilled to meet the famed preacher at first when He was brought before him, but lost interest when Jesus maintained the same silence He had kept at his trial before Caiaphas. Herod only mocked Him, draping Him in a kingly robe and returning Him to Pilate, no more keen to pass a sentence of death than the governor had been.

Hoping to placate the temple leaders, Pilate had Jesus scourged, with his soldiers pressing a crown of thorns on His head to mock His kingship. But Caiphas would not relent. Finally, Pilate offered a choice—he would pardon one criminal in a special act of clemency, either Jesus or Barabbas, a notorious robber and murderer. Even then, the priests preferred to put Jesus to death, and spare the killer.

“I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it,” Pilate proclaimed, washing his hands of the matter. Yet he still yielded to Caiphas and the mob in sentencing Jesus to crucifixion.

THE PLACE OF THE SKULL. 

Jesus, already weakened by his scourging, was forced to carry His cross to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull—albeit with some help from St. Simon of Cyrene.

Arriving, the Roman soldiers nailed Him to the Cross, affixing a sign in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin: “JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS”—to the priests’ chagrin.

At the cross stood His mother Mary, His aunt, Mary the wife of Cleophas, Mary Magdalene, and the apostle John. Jesus first entrusted His mother to St. John’s care, then prayed for His tormentors, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34, KJV).

The priests scoffed: “He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.”

Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” But He was not lamenting that the Father had abandoned Him, he was quoting Psalm 22, where King David speaks of being forsaken, of having his hands and his feet—like Jesus—pierced through, and keeping his faith regardless.

With a final breath, Jesus declared, “It is finished.” His mission of atonement fulfilled, He commended His spirit to the Father and, at last, “gave up the ghost.”

The reaction was immediate: “Then the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent,” the Gospels record, describing a terrible earthquake which tore the cloth concealing the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctuary of the temple where God’s presence was believed to dwell.

Even the Roman centurion and soldiers, trembling, confessed, “Truly this was the Son of God.”

In a rare gesture, Pilate allowed St. Joseph of Arimathea, believed to be Jesus’s uncle, to take His body for burial instead of leaving it for the carrion birds. St. Joseph wrapped Him in linen and laid Him in a tomb sealed with a great stone.

But it would not stay sealed for long.

Image: Pixabay.

Maundy Thursday, the fifth day of Holy Week, heralds the beginning of Jesus’s final hours. On Spy Wednesday, He foretold His death, and Judas Iscariot conspired with Caiaphas, the high priest, to betray Him for thirty pieces of silver. Today, in a borrowed guest room on Mount Zion, He gathered His disciples to share the Passover meal—their Last Supper.

“I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer,” Jesus told them, “for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 22:15-16.)

Breaking bread, Jesus proclaimed, “This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19). Lifting the cup, He told them, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.” (Luke 22:20). This was the origin of the Eucharist, celebrated every Sunday by many Christians, particularly Catholics and Orthodox.

A warning followed: “But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!” (Luke 22:21-22). He was well aware of Judas’s treachery, but allowed matters to unfold regardless, to fulfill the will of the Father.

GETHSEMANE.

The Athanasian Creed, held by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, and many other Christians, affirms Christ as both “God and Man. ” The Third Council of Constantinople (681 AD) recognized Christ’s dual natures—human and divine. And so, leading the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane after their supper, His heart was heavy. “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me,” He told St. Peter. (Matthew 26:38.)

A little distance from his disciples, Jesus, as Son of Man, prayed to the Father above that He might be spared from the Cross. “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” he prayed. (Matthew 26:39)

Nevertheless, He added that He accepted events would unfold “not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39). St. Luke records that an angel appeared to Him, strengthening Him, as His sweat fell to the ground like “great drops of blood”—but he accepted His fate for the sake of mankind.

BETRAYED WITH A KISS. 

The hour of betrayal arrived soon after Jesus finished praying. An armed multitude, chief priests and temple guards among them, arrived on the scene, and Judas marked Jesus out for arrest with a kiss. Chaos erupted, with St. Peter, wielding a sword, striking off the ear of the high priest’s servant—but Jesus put an end to the tumult, even healing the injured man.

“Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?” Jesus asked, clarifying that He was being seized only because He allowed it.

Turning to His captors, He challenged them, noting when He sat with them teaching in the temple, they dared not arrest Him—coming only in the dead of night, “when darkness reigns.”

And so, they led Him away. On Friday, He would face His trial—and the fulfillment of His mission.

Image by Anagoria.

Holy Wednesday, also known—for reasons that will soon become clear—as Spy Wednesday, is a low point in Holy Week, particularly after the triumph of Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and the righteous zeal of Holy Monday and Holy Tuesday, when Jesus turned the moneychanges out of the temple and called out the corruption of the temple leaders.

As we have seen, the priests and elders had already made up their minds to destroy Jesus. On Spy Wednesday, they recruited their instrument.

JUDAS MAKES HIS BARGAIN.

After the confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees in the temple courts on Tuesday, Jesus and His closest disciples, the Twelve, withdrew to Bethany, their refuge in these final days. But one of the Twelve, Judas Iscariot, decided to turn traitor and “went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?”

The price the priests offered, the infamous “thirty pieces of silver” foreshadowed by Zechariah 11:12-13 in the Old Testament, was not high—perhaps a few hundred dollars in today’s money—but it was enough for Judas, who began seeking his opportunity to betray Jesus. He, then, is the ‘Spy’ in Spy Wednesday.

Certain Christians, such as observant Eastern Orthodox, mark this event not only on Spy Wednesday but every Wednesday, fasting in remembrance of Jesus’s betrayal. Additionally, the Orthodox fast on Fridays in remembrance of Jesus’s execution, along with Catholics.

THE ANOINTING IN BETHANY. 

There was love as well as treachery on Spy Wednesday, however. While Judas was betraying the Lord in Jerusalem, a woman identified as Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus—who was raised from the dead—approached Jesus with an alabaster box of “very precious ointment” in Bethany and anointed him.

Some of the disciples bristled at the perceived wastefulness of woman’s gesture, with Judas, in particular, suggesting the oil could have been sold to raise money for the poor—although St. John tells us that his real concern was stealing from their shared funds, which he had charge of.

“Why trouble ye the woman?” Jesus said. “For ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always. For in pouring this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial,” He said—forewarning his followers, not for the last time, of His looming death.

Judas and the temple authorities would close the trap on Maundy Thursday.

Holy Tuesday commemorates the ongoing clash between Jesus and the temple authorities, begun on Holy Monday, ahead of His execution. But before that confrontation, we again encounter the allegorical fig tree, cursed the previous day for its lack of fruit, and observe the disciples’ shocked reaction.

St. Mark’s Gospel describes their astonishment as they encounter the tree once more, with St. Peter shouting, “Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.”

“How soon is the fig tree withered away!” the other marvel—granting Jesus the opportunity to explain the meaning of the curse. Have faith, He tells them, and they, too, will have the same power; even mountains will be cast in the sea by a believing prayer. By implication, the faithless—represented by the fig tree—will suffer a similar curse; the Church Fathers held it clearly represented Jerusalem’s corrupt spiritual leaders, as foreshadowed by the Book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament:

“Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;
In the time of their punishment
They shall be cast down,” says the Lord…
“No grapes shall be on the vine,
Nor figs on the fig tree,
And the leaf shall fade;
And the things I have given them shall pass away from them.”

BLIND GUIDES.

Jesus’s condemnation of Jerusalem’s leaders is all the more explicit when he returns to the temple, where he had driven out the moneychangers with a whip the previous day and began teaching.

The chief priests and elders believed they were ready to confront Him this time, challenging the authority by which He taught, and bombarding him with questions. A lengthy debate followed—from it, we have the Parable of the Two Sons, the Parable of the Tenants, the famous injunction to “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” and even the great commandments to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” and to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

After this, he addressed the crowds, warning them to do as the scribes and Pharisees said, but not as they do, for they did not practice what they preached, fulfilling their roles only for show.

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” Jesus thundered at them. “For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves nor do you allow those who are entering to go in,” he said, calling them “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!”

“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”

After this, He predicted His own fate—and the fate of many early Christians—by describing how the temple leaders would be sent “prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city… Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”

Such a plot against him would come together the following day, on Spy Wednesday.