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The last week of Jesus’ life on earth forever changed the world. These last eight days of Jesus, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, called the “Easter Octave” or later the “Holy Week” or “Passion Week” absolutely is the most essential week in the Christian Calendar.

Dr Don Aycock says, “Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday form a three-legged stool upon which the Christian faith rests. 

Christians today recognise that the Easter season is vitally important to the development and maturing of their faith”.

Next week is the 2015 Holy week. It is an opportunity to meditate on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and His perfect sacrificial offering for sin on our behalf on the cross to make us right with God and to bring us back to a close or meaningful union and fellowship with God.

 His was ultimate love!!. Indeed, the Holy week is the week of Divine exchange. And those who wait on the Lord will experience spiritual renewal and Divine exchange.

The following is a guide for your daily Bible meditations and reflection on the Lord Jesus, the cross and the resurrection during the Holy week:

Palm Sunday:
Palm Sunday was the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and said by His action, “that is what God is all about”. He entered it as God’s Messiah. 

His followers, in honour, spread their clothes on the street for Him to ride on. The whole city went wild with excitement. 

The crowd shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David”. Included in the crowd, celebrating the triumphant entry, probably were blind Bartimeus who Jesus had healed; the woman whose 12-year-old daughter Jesus restored back to life and Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. 

Jesus had significantly touched their lives. They had good reason to celebrate Him. On 2015 Palm Sunday, what good reasons do you have in celebrating, “Jesus is Lord”! But why would Jesus weep over Jerusalem? (Read Luke 19:41-44). 

Do you have perspectives on who Jesus is or have you made choices that are self-destructive? You still have the option to make fresh choices and healthy decisions.

Monday:
On the last Monday of Jesus’ life, He took on the task of cleansing the temple in Jerusalem as an expression of His anger against the evil there. 

By the time of Jesus, the outer court of the temple had become a grossly indecent money-making and business centre and it made it impossible for anyone to use that area for prayer and serious devotion to God. 

The poor Jews and Gentiles for whom the area supposedly existed had their hard-earned money squeezed from them and had great trouble focusing on worship going on in the temple. 

Thus those religious pilgrims who went to the temple could not carry out true worship. The place, which should have been a house of prayer for all nations, had become a market, a place of money and materialism activities. Jesus expressed holy anger against these evils corrupting temple worship. 

He stopped it! Is your local church congregation providing a godly environment for you to focus on the worship of God? Or is it caught in various practices of materialism and extorting money from worshipers; several offertories and “sowing seeds”. 

Who like Jesus will pause and bring the mess of monetisation of worship in many of our church congregations to an end? 

We too need to focus on Jesus and true worship in church. (Read Mark 11:15-17). How do you feel about your local church – a place of true Bible teaching, worship, and prayer? Or there are too many offertories and seed sowing campaigns, and too much focus on materialism? 

Then join in praying to Jesus that this will stop in our churches.

Tuesday:
On Tuesday of the Holy week, Jesus went back into the Jerusalem temple He had cleansed the previous day to teach there. We are not told if the money changers and animal sellers were back already. While Jesus was teaching, a delegation from the chief priests came to question Him. They asked, “by what authority are you doing these things? (chasing the money changers out of the temple) and who gave you this authority? (Mark 11:27). Clearly, they were outraged that Jesus would be bold enough to clear the temple without consulting them. Their power and prestige had been challenged. They tried to take action against Him but could not ignore His popularity with people and therefore could not take any effective action against Him. Of course they did not consider to give Him their support. (read Luke 11:27-33). 

The Bible says some people suffer because of their own sins and choices and then turn round to blame God for it. Will you submit to the authority of Jesus, and His guidelines, the Bible, for living a fully functional life?

Wednesday:
On Wednesday of the Holy week, Jesus knew He had only two days to live. Friday and its events would not spring a surprise on Him. He spent the day with His friends. As Jesus and His friends sat around a low table, a strange thing happened. A woman came from behind Jesus. She had a jar of special perfume in her hands. She broke the jar and poured its entire content over Jesus’ head. The disciples were shocked. Why would she have done this? Why the waste of that expensive perfume? Jesus said, “leave her alone”. Jesus interpreted the woman’s anointing of Him as preparation for burial. Even in this holy moment when that woman acted out of deep love and devotion and poured out her best gift for Jesus, the critics spoke up. Why is there a critic in every crowd? Whatever you do, there is always someone standing around ready to say, ‘I told you so’ or ‘you should have done it my way’ or ‘I knew it will never work’.

Are you a regular critic, or you usually belong to a cheer team?

Thursday:
 On the final Thursday of His life, Jesus celebrated the Passover feast with His disciples. (read Luke 22:11-16) The feast was essentially a celebration of salvation from death. In it the Jews remembered how the death Angel passed over them in Egypt. It was on this occasion He established the Lord’s Supper. (Luke 22: 15-20). At this meal, Jesus spoke passionately about His upcoming suffering. He was going to break His body and poured out His blood for us. That day, He also taught them lessons on humble service and spiritual leadership. Thursday night was also going to be the beginning of the climax of Jesus’ bitter suffering and ultimate sacrifice for sin. He would die our death: the death we deserve. He would die in our place and free us from the power and punishment of sin. (Romans 4:25) His is ultimate love. Indeed, ‘Jesus loves you’.