![]() ![]() The Gospel writers don’t tell us whether anyone in the crowd on that first Palm Sunday understood what Jesus was really doing. Yet within days Jesus would die at the hands of those oppressors. Many Jewish people believed the Messiah would be a mighty warrior who would overthrow their oppressors. They were praising Him and calling on Him to save them. ‘Hosanna’ in Hebrew means ‘Save us!’ Calling Jesus ‘Son of David’ meant that they believed He was the Messiah, the long-awaited liberator of the Jewish people, the fulfillment of their prophecies. ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and people cheer him, shouting: The story we hear today may be familiar: it is the beginning of the week in which the Jewish people prepared to celebrate Passover, the festival which commemorates their liberation from slavery, as recorded in the book of Exodus. But there is so much more to the story of Holy Week, starting with this procession on what we now call Palm Sunday at the start of a week full of challenges, miracles, and mysteries. ![]() They argue that what most Christians know about Holy Week centres on Good Friday and Easter, Jesus’s death and resurrection. ‘shape our understanding of Jesus and thus our understanding of what it means to be Christian – of what it means to follow him, to follow “the way” that he revealed and embodied.’ New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their book The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Last Days in Jerusalem, wrote that the story of Holy Week should However, the exact sequence of events is not as important as what they meant to the followers of Jesus, and why they have been handed down to us in this way. Here’s one possible timeline, which shows just how intense a period this was in the lives of Jesus and his followers. It’s not even clear whether they all happened in a week, or over a longer period of time. – My song is love unknown, Samuel Crossman, 1664īiblical historians disagree on the exact order of events during what we now know as Holy Week. Resounding all the day Hosannas to their King:Īnd for His death They thirst and cry. There’s a verse in the hymn, My song is love unknown, which powerfully sums up this dramatic change: Easter is the greatest feast of the Christian year, yet it’s often less celebrated, and less understood, than Christmas.Īs a child, I was curious about why the people of Jerusalem appears to rejoice at Jesus’ arrival at the start of the week, and turned against him just five days later. ![]() It wasn’t always clear what this meant for life before death. We celebrated Jesus entering Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday reflected on love and service on Thursday as we remembered Jesus’ last meal with his friends before his betrayal mourned for his death on Friday and celebrated Jesus’ power over death and call to life after death on Sunday. How do you imagine Jesus entering your city today?Īs a child, growing up in a church-going family and attending a church school, the stories of Holy Week were familiar to me, or so I thought at the time. Adrian imagined Jesus walking with all kinds of local folk in 1964, including The Beatles, jazz musician George Melly, and poet Roger McGough. The power of this story inspired poet Adrian Henri to write a poem and paint a picture about what it might be like if Jesus entered the city of Liverpool, where I live. How do you imagine Jesus entering Jerusalem? The Entry of Christ into Liverpool (1962-64) by poet Adrian Henri (click to see full size with commentary). ![]()
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