Holy Week: the Celebratory Joy Surrounding Palm Sunday

The past 10-12 days felt like a whirlwind. Just the other day, it seems, Terri and I were celebrating my Mom’s 85th birthday. And here we are kicking off Holy Week 2023, starting with Palm Sunday.

What thoughts fill your mind when you contemplate Holy Week?

For Christians anywhere and everywhere, Holy Week is an important time. It is a time of celebration, marked with great reverence, deep lament, and utter awe as we commemorate the joy of Christ’s resurrection.

It is one thing to know Jesus. It’s another thing all together to follow Him.

Holy Week, also known as Passion Week, is a time when we recognize Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. It’s also a time when we celebrate our being raised to new lives in Christ because of Jesus’ complete victory over death and all the powers of evil. Holy Week is a time of honoring Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Knowing Jesus is one thing. Following Him is another. #loveGod #loveyourneighbor #loveoneanother

Rainer Bantau

Following Jesus means taking up our cross daily, It means dying to ourselves so that we can fully experience what it means to be raised to a new life in Christ.

To follow Jesus, means to experience suffering because unearned suffering, as Martin Luther King Jr. taught us, is redemptive. Living out the Jesus Life ain’t easy.

Let me ask you—-are you truly hungry and thirsty for God’s kingdom?

Through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross at Calvary, we discover good news. By His death, burial, and resurrection, we are born into a new life that will never ever end. Jesus’ blood paid the debt, once and for all, for our sins. In His resurrection, Jesus snatches us from the jaws of defeat into the loving arms of victory. In Christ, we find life. True life. Real life. Life that lasts forever.

We learn to love our enemies, as well as God with our everythingness, our neighbor as ourselves, and one another. We discover what it means to give to whomever asks and to turn the other cheek. Prayer becomes our weapon. Peace becomes our strength.

As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

The Gospel of Luke 19:37-40 (ESV)

Palm Sunday is a joyful celebration of Jesus leaving the glory of Heaven, living among us in the flesh, and sharing His glory with us. A few days later, the crowds who shouted “Hosanna, Hosanna!” will turn on Jesus and scream “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
‭

Galatians 2:20 (ESV)

I pray that you are able to fully experience all that Holy Week was, is, and will continue to be. In this present age, we need Jesus to return more than ever. The end is only beginning. There is more to persevere, endure, and overcome that lies ahead for us, my fellow Christian. But make no mistake, these are the times when truth becomes a lie and lies become the truth. The Great Deceiver and his minions are hard at work all around us, flipping the tables of what we know to be true and deforming it all into a Great Lie.

But, believers, we know the Truth. Hold steadfast to Jesus as He holds steadfast to you.

Happy Palm Sunday!

Rainer Bantau

The Devotional Guy™

#bgbg2#BibleGateway

The Devotional Guy™ Rainer Bantau © 2023