The days leading up to Easter, known as Holy Week, are a time when we reflect on how good God is in our lives, and celebrate and remember all He has done for us. When we reflect on the work that Jesus did before the cross, we can be celebrate the joy that comes on Easter morning! 

Before you celebrate Easter morning with brunch and an egg hunt, use these Holy Week reflections to remind yourself about God’s great love for you! 

“On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. He said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

Christ came to dwell among us and to set right that which was made wrong when we broke the world with our sin. We feel the ache today of everything we long to be made right.

After Jesus entered Jerusalem, He went to the temple, supposedly the holiest place in the whole city, only to find that the place meant for worship for all was filled with people doing business, selling animals, and exchanging money. This defilement of His Father’s house was so upsetting to Jesus that He made a whip and drove out the money changers and salesmen, upturning the tables as He went.

He wanted to make holy and pure that which was always supposed to be pure and holy. The Bible calls us “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Jesus came to purify and make clean that which has been defiled, and just as He cleared the temple of impurities, He cleanses us and washes us white as snow.

“Then Mary (a friend of Jesus) took an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped His feet with her hair.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray Him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.”….

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

We don’t anoint our dead with oil today, so the significance of Mary pouring oil on Jesus is sometimes lost on us. Jesus alluded to His death many times in the days before His crucifixion, but unlike many of the disciples, Mary understands and is moved to sacrifice and humility.

Mary honored Jesus in a way that was deeply intimate, humble, and tender. She cherished her time with Him and displayed it in such an extravagant way that it seemed shameful to the other disciples.

Jesus’ work on the cross wasn’t just for us to have eternal life but for us to have an intimate and extravagant relationship with Him. Just as Mary did, we are invited to enter into a relationship of love, devotion, and intimacy with Christ because of His work on the cross

There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the King of the Jews. One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Good Friday is a day of both mourning and celebrating for believers. It is a day when we celebrate and give thanks for Jesus’ death on the cross, because without it we would have no life. And yet we mourn because Christ had to suffer death, even death on a cross, because of our great sin. He took our sins and evils upon Himself to save us.

Yet, upon the cross, Jesus spoke to a criminal sentenced to death. This unnamed criminal saw Jesus as Lord and asked Jesus to remember him. This simple act of faith was all it took for Jesus to welcome this man into paradise with Him. Jesus’ work on the cross, His death, and His sacrifice for our sins, is what gave this criminal hope. Even as we mourn today for our part in the death of Christ, we anxiously look forward to Sunday and to being in paradise with Jesus.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

He is Risen! Easter Sunday is a joyous, celebratory day for Christians, because we celebrate not just the death of Jesus Christ but His resurrection and ultimate defeat of death! Today is a day for celebration, for praise, and for joyful and hopeful expectation for Christ to come.

Jesus has defeated death. He offers to make you new, and He wants you to be part of His making our world new.