The time from sundown on Holy Thursday to sundown on Easter Day is also known as the Triduum, which is Latin for “three days.”
I cannot even begin to explain or tell you how very special Palm Sunday is to me and how very special this day and the meaning of this day is to me and what effect it has on my faith journey each and every yeart of the importance of this day.
Holy Week is the last week of Lent.
The first two days of Passover (from sundown of the first date listed, until nightfall two days later) are full-fledged, no-work-allowed holiday days. The subsequent four days are Chol Hamoed, when work is allowed, albeit with restrictions.
Holy Week observances began in Jerusalem in the earliest days of the Church, when devout people traveled to Jerusalem at Passover to reenact the events of the week leading up to the Resurrection.
Egeria was a Christian who traveled widely during the period of 381-385 and wrote about Christian customs and observances in Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor. She described how religious tourists to Jerusalem reenacted the events of Holy Week. On Palm Sunday afternoon, the crowds waved palm fronds as they made a procession from the Mount of Olives into the city. Of course, the observances must have begun quite a number of years before Egeria witnessed them, or they wouldn’t have been so elaborate. It’s just that Egeria’s description is the earliest we still have. The tourists took the customs home with them. Holy week observances spread to Spain by the fifth century, to Gaul and England by the early seventh century. They didn’t spread to Rome until the twelfth century. Much of her time would have been spent in travel to and from the East. Once in Constantinople, it would have taken her eight more weeks to reach Jerusalem, traveling 21 miles a day over 1200 miles. Egeria also must have been a lady of some leisure and wealth to have spent three years traveling in the East. She may have been a nun and wrote her narrative for her fellow-nuns back in Spain. Possibly she had some connections with the imperial court at Constantinople. Emperor Theodosius the Great was from Spain. Though no mention is made of Egeria in the surviving court records, the very fact that she arrived in Constantinople about the same time as the Spanish Theodosius suggests some connection. Theodosius' wife Aelia Flacilla and his niece Serena were staunch Christians and implacable foes of paganism. What relationship, if any, Egeria might have had with these devout ladies is unknown.
The purpose of Holy Week is to reenact, relive, and participate in the passion of Jesus Christ.
Holy Week is the same in the eastern and western Church, but because eastern Christians use the Julian Calendar to calculate Easter, the celebrations occur at different times. All Orthodox churches continue to use the Julian Calendar when they calculate the date of Easter and holy days that are dependent on the date of Easter. Some Orthodox churches still use the Julian Calendar for all holy days, such as the Orthodox Churches of Jerusalem, Georgia, Russia, and Serbia and the other Slavic churches. If you have been watching the news on television, you may have noticed that Christmas was celebrated on 7 January in Serbia and Russia. That is because the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church use the Julian Calendar for all holy days. Currently, Julian 25 December falls on Gregorian 7 January.In computer technology, the term julian date does not refer to the Julian Calendar. It is a misnomer for a method of ignoring the months and numbering the days of the year consecutively from 1 to 365 (or 366).
However, the following events in the week before Easter are the same, east and west, relative to the date of Easter:
- Palm Sunday (or Passion Sunday), the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem.
- Holy Thursday (or Maundy Thursday), the institution of Communion and the betrayal by Judas.
- Good Friday, the arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, and burial of Jesus Christ.
- Holy Saturday, the Sabbath on which Jesus rested in the grave.
We can reconstruct Holy Week from Scripture:
Friday: Preparation Day, the Passover
The disciples arranged for the Passover meal, which took place after sundown on Thursday. We might call it Friday Eve, because by Jewish reckoning, the day begins with the previous sunset. That’s why we call 24 December “Christmas Eve.”
Jesus and the disciples ate the Passover in the upper room. They ate it early, which was not uncommon. In that era, most Passover Seders did not include lamb, because most Jews lived too far away from the Temple to obtain a lamb that was kosher for Passover. Therefore the disciples, who were from Galilee, would have been accustomed to a Passover Seder without lamb.
Judas left during the meal. Jesus and the remaining disciples adjourned to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed and the disciples kept falling asleep. Judas arrived to betray Jesus, who spent the rest of the night being tried by the Sanhedrin and by Pilate.
The following morning, which was still the same day by Jewish reckoning, the Crucifixion significantly took place just as the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple. Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:55-56, and John 19:31 all inform us that this took place on Preparation Day, which is the Jewish name for Friday. Mark and John explain that the next day was the Sabbath.
Later the disciples realized that in giving them the bread and pronouncing it His body, Jesus Himself had been the Passover lamb at the Last Supper. Thus Jesus, our Passover lamb, was sacrificed for our sins on Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7), and His blood protects us from the angel of death.
Jesus died on the cross and was buried before sunset. So Friday was first day that Jesus lay in the tomb.
Saturday: the Jewish Sabbath
Jesus rested in the tomb on the Sabbath. According to Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1-3, and Luke 23:56-24:3, the day before the Resurrection was a Sabbath. This is the second day that Jesus lay in the tomb.
Sunday: the first day of the week, the Festival of First Fruits
On the third day, Jesus rose from the grave. It was the first day of the week and the day after the Sabbath, according to Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1-3, Luke 23:56-24:3.
John 20:1 says the Resurrection took place on the first day of the week. He does not explicitly say that the previous day was the Sabbath, but there is no room in his narrative for any intervening days.
The first day of the week is the Jewish name for Sunday. Sunday is also the eighth day after the creation in Genesis, so Paul describes Jesus’ Resurrection as the first fruits of the new creation in 1 Corinthians 15:20-23.
Notice the following:
- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all inform us that the Last Supper and the Crucifixion took place on Preparation Day. (Remember, for them the day begins at sunset.)
- Mark and John inform us that the next day, the day after the Crucifixion, was the Sabbath.
- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John inform us that the Resurrection took place on the first day of the week.
- Matthew, Mark, and Luke inform us that the day before the Resurrection was the Sabbath, and John heavily implies it.
Ancient Christian writers confirm this reconstruction. In The Apostolic Constitutions, Book V, Section III, it says that the Last Supper occurred on the fifth day of the week (Thursday), that Jesus was crucified on the next day (Friday), and rose on the first day (Sunday), and it explicitly states that this constitutes three days and three nights. The Apostolic Constitutions uses Roman-style midnight-to-midnight days, so this squares with the New Testament’s use of sundown-to-sundown days. It also says that Jesus gave the apostles a commandment to pass on to us, to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays; the first to commemorate His betrayal, the second to commemorate His passion on the cross.
Therefore, it is obvious that the Crucifixion took place on a Friday, that Jesus rested in the tomb on Saturday, the Sabbath, and rose from the grave on Sunday. So, you might ask, why didn’t the gospel writers just come right out and say that it was Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? The answer is that they did, for the circumstances under which they wrote. They were writing for an audience beyond Palestine, and in the Roman Empire of the first century, there was no general consensus about the names of the days of the week, the number of the current year, the names and lengths of the months, the date of the New Year, or the time at which the day began. On that last point, the day began at midnight in Egypt, at sunrise in Greece, and at sunset in Palestine. So even though it is not what we are used to, the gospels are really worded in such a way as to make the dates and times comprehensible to anyone in the Roman Empire who was familiar with the Jewish Scriptures.
When you count days you get a different answer than when you subtract dates. If you go to a three-day seminar that begins on Friday, you expect it to end on Sunday, because Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are three days. However, if you subtract the date of Friday from the date of Sunday, the answer is two elapsed days. The ancients counted days instead of calculating elapsed time—in fact, Jesus Himself may have counted days this way in Luke 13:31-32. This is why the tradition is universal that Jesus spent three days in the tomb when He was buried on Friday and rose from the dead on Sunday. All intervals in the Jewish and Christian calendars are calculated the same way, which is why Pentecost falls on a Sunday and not on a Monday.
Palm Sunday is April 17th and Many Jews will celebrate with their family on Sunday night April 17th how many times this does happen in history????
As I savor the evening of April 17th with family and friends I will also savor the thought of how lucky I am to have been Baptized on Palm Sunday, what special meaning this day has for me each and every year!!!!
Happy Easter and Shalom Passover!!!
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