Holy Week

Bible Readings for Holy Week

Reads these Bible verses for each day of Holy Week -- from the joyous celebration of Palm Sunday through the somber hours of Good Friday to the triumph of Easter Morning-- as part of your devotional practice.

Sunday, April 5th (Palm Sunday)

Philippians 2:6-11

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, Did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

• Lord, give me the grace to celebrate this occasion. Palm Sunday did not last- what does? But while we dance together, it is a foretaste of heaven.

Monday, April 6th

Isaiah 42:1-4

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

• “My servant will not cry or lift up his voice or make is heard in the street… he will faithfully bring forth justice.”
  
• That is our mission too, Lord: not by force or violence, but by gentle, faithful persistence to bring forth justice on the earth.

Tuesday, April 7th

Isaiah 42:1-4

Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." But I said, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God."

• God knows me intimately, even from my first moments. He has a plan for me; whatever talents I have, he can put to use.
  
• Do I stand in the Lord’s way, with my own plan? I worked hard, I tried my best but now I have nothing left to give. Is this now the lord’s time when my way seems blocked?

Wednesday, April 8th

Matthew 26:14-16

Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What will you give me if I betray him to you?" They paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

• There were two treacheries. Judas went out to grab his money, betrayed Jesus, and then killed himself in despair. Peter, despite his protests, would deny his Lord; he faced his own appalling guilt, then wept bitterly. His failure was not the end of the mission, but the beginning.
• Success is what I do with my failures. Teach me to trust in your love Lord, no matter what I have done, and to learn from my mistakes and even from treachery.

Thursday, April 9th (Holy Thursday)

John 13:12-16

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them."

• John's gospel describes the Last Supper without mentioning the Eucharist. Instead, it describes Jesus washing his friend's feet.
  
• On his knees like a servant, Jesus turned human status upside down. Do I celebrate with the community of those who serve?

Friday, April 10th (Good Friday)

Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of the dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was depised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hid their faces, he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.

• Now we are at the heart of Jesus’ mission: to suffer appallingly and to die without faltering in his love for us. This is where the gospel begins and ends. Yet it is hard to contemplate. We shy away from the pain and injustice of the passion.
  
• I carry the nail marks in my hands from baptism. I may wander far from the cross, but at the end I am drawn back to it.

Saturday, April 11 (Holy Saturday)

Romans 6:3-11

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

• Tonight we affirm our ancient faith: Christ has robbed death of its ultimate sting and has invigorated this sweet, precious, precarious, once-only life that is slipping away from us with every hour and day and year.
  
• When we breathe the evening air, when we catch the sweet smells of the new season, we have hints of a day that knows no ending, a light that will not yield to darkness, and a life in these weary bodies that even creeping death will not be able to frustrate or despoil. We yearn for new life.

Sunday, April 12th (Easter Sunday)

John 20:1-9

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

• Jesus has risen, and we have risen with him to new life.
  
• Where do I seek him now?

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