Holy Week Explained
By Rev. Tom Parkinson
Holy days are an important part of every religious tradition. Their purpose is to serve as spiritual anchors, providing rhythmic opportunities to preserve and retell the foundational stories of faith. For followers of Jesus, there is no holy day more important than Easter, which recalls the resurrection of Jesus. Connected to this holy day is the ancient observance of Holy Week, during which Christians remember all the events leading up to the resurrection.
Early Christian Practice
Holy Week is defined as the eight-day period from Palm Sunday to Easter. The entire week is framed by a sequential re-telling of the final days of Jesus’ earthly life. The earliest Christians developed a strong desire to remember and re-enact the events of Jesus’ final days. By the fourth century AD, Christians throughout the world were celebrating a three-day sequence, called the Triduum Sacrum, focusing on:
· Thursday evening → Friday (the Last Supper)
· Friday → Saturday (Crucifixion and burial)
· Saturday evening → Sunday (resurrection)
This three-day observance, from sundown on Thursday to sunrise on Sunday, is the backbone of Holy Week as we know it today.
The Expansion of Holy Week
Over time, Christians added features to the commemoration of Holy Week: passion plays, processions, and elaborate worship liturgies. A practice also developed to observe a 40-day season of fasting and repentance, called Lent, in preparation for the Easter celebration.
By the seventh century, Holy Week had expanded into a full week of remembrance, with each day having a part of the biblical narrative as its focus:
Day Focus
Palm Sunday - Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem
Holy Monday - Jesus’ cleansing of the temple
Holy Tuesday - Jesus’ teachings and controversies
Holy Wednesday - Judas’ betrayal of Jesus
Maundy Thursday - Foot-washing, Last Supper, Gethsemane
Good Friday - Jesus’ passion and crucifixion
Holy Saturday - Jesus in the tomb
Easter Sunday - The resurrection of Jesus
An Invitation to Holy Week at Dutilh Church
I invite you to join us at Dutilh Church as we take the sacred journey of Holy Week.
On Maundy Thursday, we will gather at 7 p.m. for a traditional service recalling the Upper Room. In addition to sharing Holy Communion, we will have the traditional stripping of the altar, a visual way of re-enacting Jesus’ distress in Gethsemane and the agony of his betrayal, desertion, and arrest.
On Good Friday, we will gather at 7 p.m. for a contemporary reflection on the cross. Derived from Good Friday passion plays, the message will be a first-person dramatic telling of the crucifixion of Christ from the perspective of Simon of Cyrene, who was compelled by the Romans to carry Jesus’ cross.
On Easter Sunday, we will begin our celebration at dawn, with an outdoor sunrise service at 6:45 a.m. Just as the women arrived to discover the empty tomb at first light, so we will gather at dawn to hear the good news that Christ is risen. Then, at 9:30 and 11:00, we will hold joyful worship celebrations that bask in the glorious, good news of the resurrection.
All told, Holy Week invites us not only to remember Jesus’ final days, but to let those days shape our own lives of faith. As we take this journey together, may we all experience the gift of a renewed faith and a closer walk with Jesus Christ.