This week, I'll be
posting a study: Walk with Jesus: Holy Week 2020. You can download the entire study, or just visit this
page every day. (If
you download the pdf, you should be able to print it 2 pages to a sheet (8.5 x
11) if you set it to landscape.)
We'll journey through Israel, pausing to read and reflect at various events of His life and ministry. These events took place at specific locations, so you’ll learn a bit about Israel in 30AD, too. There are questions to inspire you to meditate on your response to Jesus’ ministry and how that may be different this year due to self-isolation and social distancing. After completing the daily study, take time to reflect and journal on the questions. If you are doing this study with friends, share you insights with each other. Each session has an activity to do as well to help you move faith into action.
Close each session with the prayer in the lesson.
We'll journey through Israel, pausing to read and reflect at various events of His life and ministry. These events took place at specific locations, so you’ll learn a bit about Israel in 30AD, too. There are questions to inspire you to meditate on your response to Jesus’ ministry and how that may be different this year due to self-isolation and social distancing. After completing the daily study, take time to reflect and journal on the questions. If you are doing this study with friends, share you insights with each other. Each session has an activity to do as well to help you move faith into action.
Close each session with the prayer in the lesson.
Opening Prayer
Lord Jesus, walk with me
and open my heart to what you would have me learn from these lessons. Amen.
Kingship of Christ (Friday): Golgotha
Kingship and Kingdom are a little foreign to us in the 21st Century. Jesus enters Jerusalem fulfilling the prophecy “behold your King comes...meek and seated on a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). The people wanted a military king, like David, to free them from Rome. When Jesus did not live up to their expectations, they turned against him.
Has COVID-19 made you examine your expectations of God?
Visitors entering from the north would see upright poles on the top of the small hill known as Golgotha. Prisoners and enemies of Rome were marched through the city from the Praetorium to this location. They carried the cross bar to which they are tied or nailed. Then they were hoisted to the top of the upright to die a slow and painful death by suffocation.
Read Matthew 27:1-66
Israelites were expecting a warrior king to defeat Rome, but that was not who Jesus was. How would you have reacted?
Would you have shouted ‘Hosanna’ and ‘Crucify’ with the crowd or not?
Take Action:
Sit and meditate on the Cross and Sacrifice of Our Lord. Hold, or look at a cross. Picture the events of Holy Week in your mind, esp. the crucifixion.
Attend a Good Friday service, perhaps streamed online.
Today’s Prayer
Blessed Lord, you died in agony for my salvation—not a victory of armies, but of enduring and everlasting love. Help me to be faithful to your call to follow, not counting the cost, but following faithfully. Amen.
Prayer for Good Friday:
Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
