The week of Jesus’ Passion had to be confusing for those who were experiencing it live. It still can be mysterious to even the most informed person today. I would like to share with you some of insights I have gathered that are easily missed by most people.
The first few concern Palm Sunday. Jesus approaches Jerusalem from the East. Bethany, where Jesus raises Lazarus is just over a ridge called the Mount of Olives. The Garden of Gethsemane is at the foot of that ridge, not much more than 400 meters (1/4 mile) from the east gate. Bethphage is on top of the ridge. That is where Jesus picks up his little donkey. The path down the ridge would be a switchback, but not a long one. People are placing their coats and palms on this path. It is outside of the city. When Jesus gets to the gate, He looks up and laments for Jerusalem:
41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
Luke 19:41-42 (ESV)
The gate He walks through took you directly into the outer court of the temple. It is there that Jesus saw the moneychangers ripping people off in conjunction with an activity that was supposed to be holy. God is very patient with some serious offenses, but when you combine it with something holy, you get a strong reaction. Consider how the wealthy Corinthian Christians practiced discrimination against the poor Christians in conjunction with the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17f). It drew physical punishment from God.
The crowd on Palm Sunday was very pro-Jesus. How could things change so much in just a few days. I doubt that it is the same group of people. The crowd on Palm Sunday were supplemented or informed by people who saw the raising of Lazarus (John 12:17). They were convinced Jesus was the Messiah, but they still didn’t know what a Messiah did. The quote above suggests that God has hidden His purpose from just about everybody’s understanding, until it was completed.
A lot happens in a few days. Jesus continues to teach and to heal, but His real mission is to complete His fulfillment of God’s Law and to absorb the most serious aspect of the punishment for sin.
Luke says that Jesus began his public ministry when He was about thirty (30ish). Was Jesus actually 32? His ministry was 3 and 1/2 years long. The consensus is that Jesus was born before 4 BC, but that is based on more recent copies of the historian Josephus, which placed the death of Herod the Great at 4BC. I have read that copying errors messed up that date. It was more likely 1 BC, with Jesus’ birth in 2 BC. That could make the year of Jesus’ Passion 34 AD. On 34 AD Passover would have been on a Thursday, beginning Wednesday after sundown.
Does that fit? It actually does. Jesus said,
40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:40 (ESV)
If Jesus’ crucifixion was Friday, there is no way to get three nights. Good Friday was chosen instead of Good Thursday, because the next day was a Sabbath. A regular Sabbath is Saturday. John says,
31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
John 19:31 (ESV)
What is a “high day”?
5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the Lord’s Passover. 6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.
Leviticus 23:5-7 (ESV)
A first day of Unleavened Bread, which is the day after Passover, is a day “with no ordinary work”, in other words, a Sabbath. Jesus celebrated the Passover after sundown on Wednesday. The Jewish leaders were in a hurry because they didn’t celebrate it until after Jesus’ execution, they were too busy making dirty plans. Jesus was crucified on a Thursday and was in the tomb Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
A more important and somewhat misunderstood event happens on the cross. Supernatural darkness covers the whole land from about the sixth hour (noon) until about the ninth hour. What is happening?
46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46 (ESV)
Jesus knew very well why He was being forsaken. He is being forsaken for us. To be forsaken by the Father is the serious part of punishment for sin. “The wages of sin is death” says Romans 6:23. You may notice that we still have to physically die. It the spiritual death of being forsaken that is the hard part. Jesus is accomplishing that part. The execution of God’s Law is done without compromise. Jesus keeps the Law for about 35 years, and Jesus is forsaken for possibly 3 1/2 hours. The number 7 is special in the Bible as is half of it, 3 1/2.
Now people can be connected to Jesus through baptism in His name and the obedience and suffering of Jesus applies to them. We don’t have to repeat it if we are “in Christ”.
One more odd thing, only Matthew records it.
52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
Matthew 27:52-53 (ESV)
This mini-Night of the Living Dead is unexplained. Jesus is the first to be properly resurrected. These people are re-vivified. Probably they were recently dead like Lazarus. They are also “saints”, people regarded as righteous by God. They would have been in the good neighborhood of Sheol (aka The Limbo of the Fathers, The Bosom of Abraham) read more here:https://afterdeathsite.com/2025/07/22/sheol-as-a-waiting-room/. Why are they walking around? Who knows? It is just one more testimony to the power of the event that just happened. The Old Testament righteous are being freed from Sheol and are moving up to Heaven. Prior to this Jesus said,
13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. John 3:13 (ESV)
That is clearly no longer the case.
Giving Christ 