Holy Week: the World Turned Upside Down

By Richard Milner Evans

This is a story depicting many events of Holy Week as seen through the eyes of Jesus, Judas, Caiaphas, Pilate, Simon of Cyrene, the centurion, and many others. It often uses Scripture to set the stage but then expands the view to encompass the sights and sounds of Jerusalem. It presents the triumphant entry into the city on Palm Sunday, the chaotic events of Jesus and the moneychangers, and then Caiaphass desperate plot to put an end to this problem rabbi called Jesus.

The famous, the infamous, the disciple, the casual follower of Christ, the Roman soldier, and the common man are all included in the events, and each gets a chance to tell his story about what it means to him and how it affects his world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449738563

Richard Milner Evans

Richard Milner Evans, MD, an ophthalmologist, writes a daily devotional to send to several hundred Christian friends. Throughout his medical career, Richard has participated in many medical missions in Central America. He enjoys acting in church and community theatre. A production of Love Song inspired him to write this book.

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Holy Week

The World Turn Upside Down

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Richard Milner Evans

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Copyright © 2012 Richard Milner Evans.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3858-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3861-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3856-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012901474

WestBow Press rev. date: 2/29/2012

Contents

Preface

-1-

What’s So Important about Holy Week?

-2-

Heroes and Criminals

-3-

Pray without Ceasing

Palm Sunday

-4-

Prayers on Sunday

-5-

Preparing for the Triumphal Entry

-6-

Welcomed in Triumph

-7-

Back on the Streets

-8-

The Stones Will Cry Out

-9-

The Judas Diary #1

Monday

-10-

The Judas Diary #2

-11-

Growing a Follower #1: Loved by God?

-12-

The Moneychanger in

the Temple Courtyard

-13-

Prayers on Monday

-14-

Growing a Follower #2:

Doesn’t He Have to Be the Messiah?

-15-

More Prayers on Monday

-16-

Growing a Follower #3:

He Has to Be the Messiah!

Tuesday

-17-

The Judas Diary #3

-18-

Growing a Follower #4:

To Honor the Messiah

-19-

Preparing for a Confrontation

-20-

Anointed by Love

Wednesday

-21-

Prayers on Wednesday

-22-

The Judas Diary #4

Maundy Thursday

-23-

Upper Room: He Washed My Feet!

-24-

The Judas Diary #5

-25-

Prayers on Thursday

Good Friday

-26-

Betraying the Messiah

-27-

Peter’s Denial

-28-

Prayers on Friday

-29-

Pilate: I Don’t Understand …

-30-

Give Us Barabbas

-31-

The Judas Diary #6

-32-

Shouldering the Burden

-33-

A Mother’s Tears

-34-

Between Two Criminals

-35-

A Soldier at the Crossroads

-36-

Standing in the Darkness

-37-

Guard the Tomb

Easter Sunday

-38-

The Tomb Was Empty

-39-

Celebrate Freedom, Celebrate Triumph

-40-

Prayers on Easter Sunday

-41-

Prayers and Prophecies of Holy Week

-42-

The Stones Will Cry Out—Again

-43-

The Only Stranger

Epilogue

-A-

-B-

-C-

About the Author

For my darling wife, Janice, and my children, David and Elizabeth.

It’s a celebration of life over death. The whole message of Holy Week is the message of God to join him.

~ Glenn Duffy

Preface

I stood there in the gloom that Friday, looking up at Christ on the cross and mocking Him. I uttered words of contempt and derision, telling Him that He had been abandoned by God and asking Him whom He would turn to now. Even as I uttered the words, they touched my soul. I had commanded that He be whipped and I had given the order to crucify Him. I wore the regal garments of a Roman governor. The real me was hidden, and, as I stood at the foot of the cross, I was portraying Pontius Pilate who had come to see the crucifixion of the one they called the king of the Jews.

The blood wasn’t real, nor was the crown of thorns, nor were the stripes that represented the thirty-nine lashes I had ordered. The agonizing torture of the cross wasn’t real either. Still, the metallic echo of the hammer striking iron spikes bit to the very core of my being. In my head, I knew I was only saying those terrible words to my friend Mike who was portraying Jesus. They were scripted words of what might have been said to Christ two thousand years ago as He hung on the cross. In my heart, they seemed all too real. I may not have spoken them to Jesus face-to-face, but, at times during my life, my thoughts, my actions, and my inactions had made a mockery of all that Christ had come to earth to do.

I was an actor and a Christian and the perspectives kept flowing together. He hung on the cross because I commanded it, but He stayed on the cross to forgive my sins. I was both the instrument of His death on the cross and the reason for it. I saw the spikes protruding from the cross and kept remembering what I’d read before: It wasn’t the nails that held Christ on the cross, it was His love. He paid the price for my sins and I had made it all happen.

Each night I walked from the stage emotionally spent but watched in awe and wonder as the next scene showed the real truth, the awesome triumph of God’s glory and Christ’s ministry. The risen Savior spoke simple words of absolute unconditional love. He spoke of forgiveness and a new beginning, and I knew that He loves us even when we turn our backs on Him, when we deny or mock Him, and when our sins put Him on the cross. And I knew that one day the light will dawn within each of us and we’ll be reborn in the spirit of the victorious Messiah.

Holy Week in all its wonder and pageantry has fascinated me for years. I’ve read many accounts of the happenings that took place during this special week, but they almost always have a single point of view. With so many activities and the multitude of people involved, the rich and powerful, the disciples, the common man, plus all the villains and criminals, I wanted to view the events and the reasons behind them from the differing perspectives of many of these people. I wanted to see their thoughts, their words, and their deeds. I even wanted to consider the prayers they may have raised to their God as they encountered a wide variety of often stressful situations.

I have used several translations of Holy Scripture as my primary sources and inspiration but other books and some Internet research has provided additional background information. This book is written in a generally chronological manner. The events are all biblically recorded and often references are cited. The thoughts, prayers, and motivations are sometimes biblically recorded but often a construction to help understand how things might have led to the events as they are actually recorded in the Scriptures.

-1-

What’s So Important about Holy Week?

What makes Holy Week so unique, so special, and so vitally important? Why is it significant enough to merit our precious time and attention?

Our world is constantly in flux. It changes every minute, every hour, every day, and every week, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. If we look at this one week and see all the ramifications of those changes, there is little doubt that Holy Week is the most important week in the history of the world. This very special week started with many hundreds of casual believers celebrating the triumphal and jubilant entry of Jesus Christ and His disciples into Jerusalem just prior to the start of Passover. It ended with the quiet celebration of a handful of scared but devoted believers timidly, and perhaps even skeptically, celebrating Christ’s sacrifice, His singular victory over death, and His gift of salvation. It began with an unrealistic promise in the minds of many and ended with an incredible achievement witnessed by the eyes of a few. It started with the expected belief that glorious victories over a foreign conqueror were close at hand. It ended with the belated understanding that Christ was already victorious and that eternal glory was the real goal. It was a week that transformed the minds, the hearts, and the souls of many men and women.

A surprising, pivotal event of the week was when the high priest Caiaphas and Judas Iscariot joined forces to arrest Jesus. The goals and expectations were vastly different. They did make improbable conspirators. Most likely, the impatient Judas was pushing Jesus to overthrow the Roman occupation and set up His kingdom on earth. Caiaphas deeply feared this itinerant preacher, Jesus, upsetting the status quo. Judas, the disciple, desperately wanted change and the high priest was almost panicked trying to prevent it. Both the crowd’s jubilation on Palm Sunday and the chaos Christ created in the temple courtyard added fire to the anger the Pharisees and the Sadducees had toward this upstart Messiah and His misguided followers. They feared Jesus’ growing power almost as much as they feared the retaliation of the Roman government against them because they, the Jewish religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, weren’t adequately controlling the populace. Miraculously they found one of Jesus’ followers who inexplicably seemed to help them solve the problem with that Nazarene troublemaker.

The rest of the week was filled with an amazing variety of experiences and emotions. The lives of many influential and important people interacted during this week to create the events that were so pivotal in helping Jesus fulfill His destiny.

Of course, not everything was accomplished during this week, but it was this week that started the changes. Those changes began to slowly grow, slowly spread, and slowly transform the lives of one person after another. Through the millennia, they have transformed the world. The changes that began in the upper room when Jesus, with a basin of water and a towel, taught His disciples to be the servant to others, are seen every day. When there is an earthquake, a hurricane, a tsunami, or any other natural disaster, the Christian charities and Christian missionaries are among the first and most dedicated groups who reach out in love to make life a little better for those in need. It’s seen in transformed lives, families, communities, and nations who live Christ’s message of love and service every day. It’s seen in countless millions of little events every day when people remember the teachings of Jesus Christ and let those messages guide their lives. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the triumph of Easter have transformed over a billion lives, people who are reaching out to more and more people every day.

-2-

Heroes and Criminals

Holy Week seems to be a very fitting time to talk about heroes. Jesus was a hero to the masses who welcomed Him into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. By Friday, all that had changed. On Thursday evening, Judas was the unwitting hero to the Sanhedrin, but all that would change within just a few hours as well.

People can be very fickle about their heroes. They can look at things in vastly different ways depending on the circumstances of their lives and the way the facts of a situation are presented.

Throughout the chapters of this book, you will see a series of stories that look at the events of this week from a variety of perspectives. Take the opportunity to explore the stories in the Bible and then immerse yourself in the experience. Imagine being there to welcome the Messiah into Jerusalem. Look at the ministry of Jesus from the eyes of Judas and watch Pilate try to deal with an unruly mob.

The streets of Jerusalem were filled with all manner of people and many of them were touched in some way or another by Jesus or the events that surrounded Him during Holy Week. Obvious choices for heroes would be the disciple John, the only disciple who had the courage to be there at the crucifixion and Jesus’ choice to take care of His mother. Another fairly obvious hero would be Joseph of Arimathea, a man of some property and influence with potentially a lot to lose if he angered the wrong people. He was a special man who had the courage to go to the authorities to ask for Jesus’ body and then have Jesus put in the tomb he had chosen for himself. There were also some unwitting heroes in the story, including the man who owned the donkey that was used for the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and the man who let Jesus and the disciples use his upper room for a Last Supper.

There are many more whose roles are far more equivocal. Peter, for all his rhetoric at the Last Supper and his attempt to defend Jesus from being arrested in the garden of Gethsemane, certainly failed to fulfill the role of a hero when he vehemently denied Christ three times in the courtyard outside Jesus’ trial by the Sanhedrin. Pilate had a few semi-heroic moments when he tried to spare Jesus’ life, but he too failed to be any kind of hero once he washed his hands of the problem of Jesus