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Day by Day Guide for Passion Week

Updated: Mar 11, 2020

Sunday –

  • Jesus triumphant entrance into Jerusalem


Monday –

  • Curses the fig tree on the way into the city

  • Weeps over Jerusalem

  • Cleanses the temple for the second time in His ministry


Tuesday –

  • Finds the fig tree withered; teaches on faith


Wednesday – Silent Day

  • No record in the Gospels, but much activity as Jesus prepares for the Last Supper and as Judas and Sanhedrin prepare for Jesus’ arrest.


Thursday –

  • Peter and John sent to make preparation for Passover Meal

  • Lord’s Supper instituted

  • To Garden of Gethsemane; Jesus’ agony

  • Betrayal by Judas; arrest by Sanhedrin


Friday –

The trials of Jesus Christ

  • First trial, before Annas

  • Second [and primary] trial before Sanhedrin; Jesus is condemned, misused

  • Third trial, immediately at dawn

  • Fourth trial, before Pilate

  • Fifth trial, before Herod

  • Sixth trail, before Pilate

  • Jesus is scourged

  • Jesus bears His cross to the gate on north of city and is crucified around 9am


Jesus’ Seven Saying from the Cross

The Death of the God-Man

  • About 3pm; veil torn, rocks rent; some graves opened and people rise [to mortality] and go into the city

  • Jesus’ side pierced

  • Passover lambs slain in temple

  • Jesus buried by sundown


Saturday –

  • At the request of the Jewish leadership; Pilate grants a guard and sets a seal on the tomb of Jesus


Sunday –

Jesus Christ rises from the dead and makes appearances on the day of His rising to:

  • Mary Magdalene and other women who come to the tomb.

  • To disciples on the road to Emmaus

  • To the astonished disciples [Thomas is absent]

  • To Simon Peter [nowhere recorded, but alluded to in Luke 24:33-34]



[some info adapted from Jesus.org – Doug Bookman]

How the power of the Word of God Changed Augustine's life

His name was Augustine. He lived from 354-430 AD. When he was 11, he and some friends stole fruit from a neighbor’s garden. He says, "I did not steal the fruit because I was hungry, but because it was not permitted. It was foul, and I loved it."


As a young man his keen mind and penetrating intellect gave him a penchant for philosophy. As a teenager, Augustine left North Africa to go to Italy to get away from his praying mother and to be with his mistress and their child, completely unknown to his mother, Monica. She came to Italy, eventually convinced Augustine to end his relationship with the mistress, and got him engaged to a Christian girl who was so young that to be of legal age the marriage was two years off.


During these two years, Augustine fell to his flesh and become sexually involved with another woman. He says he had no power to resist his natural desires. He famously prayed, Lord give me chastity and continence (abstinence), but not yet. Monica continued to pray for her son that he would come to Christ.


In search of deliverance from his lust, he sought out a friend. His friend told him about the conversion of Victorinus. Augustine said, "The story shows the great glory of your grace and that he (Augustine) began to glow with fervor to imitate Victorinus.”


Augustine had first tried reading the Scriptures while a teenager but was not impressed. But now that he was older, he found it compelling. Yet he knew the Bible demanded a commitment to Christ and that meant life change. He would have to give up his fleshly lusts and all his dreams of success and glory for himself. He would have to please God and not the world around him. He said, “part of me wants to; part is unable to.”


Augustine came to a point of crisis. He sat in a garden with a friend. He cried out, “I know I have a will, as surely as I know there is life within me. When I choose to do something or not to do it, I am certain that it is my own self making this act of will. You have raised me up, so that I can now see you must be there, to be perceived, but I confess that my eyes are still too weak. The thought of you fills me with love, yes, but also with dread. I realize that I am far from you.”


Augustine cried out and shouted to the sky, “How long O Lord? Will I never cease setting my heart on shadows and following a lie? How long O Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long? Tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not in this very hour put an end to my uncleanness?”


Then a voice. He heard a voice. A childish, piping voice so high-pitched he could not tell whether it was male or female. The voice chanted tunelessly over and over, “take up and read, take up and read.” He turned to his friend Alpius, “Do you hear that?” He stared at him in silence.


There was nearby in the garden a copy of Paul’s letter to the Romans. It was opened to 13:13-14, “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”


Instantly, as if a peaceful light streamed into his heart, dark shadows of doubt fled. The man of unconquerable will was conquered by words from a book that he once dismissed. Augustine describes his salvation as being released from the fetters of lust by the power of the word of God.


Augustine became one of the greatest and most brilliant thinkers in Christendom and profoundly affected Christian history. He was freed from the power of lust by the greater power of the Word of God! Oh, the innate, mighty power in the Bible.


Monday Morning Application:

First, there is inherent power in the Word of God. The Bible is the very word of God and through this book God speaks directly to us.


Hebrews 4:12 - “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Emphasis mine)


2 Timothy 3:16 - “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness...” (Emphasis mine)


Matthew 4:4 - But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”


Second, as you seek to daily overcome struggles of temptation, utilize the Word of God to help deliver you from the snares of the enemy. Memorize it, meditate on it, study it, read it, ponder on it, and pray it! Immerse yourself in the Bible. When you are struggling with temptation, whether if be lust, jealousy, worry, doubt, gossip, gluttony, greed, and on and on I could go, when you feel the intense temptation to sin, I encourage you to quote Scripture. Say it over and over until the temptation has passed.

The First Step To A Gospel-Awakened Heart

There are no grace graduates. You never, never, never, never, outgrow your need for the grace of God. The Christian life is not about self-improvement. The Christian life is not about life betterment, so we can say after walking with Jesus, “I’m not there yet, but I’m close!”

As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. The longer I walk with Jesus, the more I am confronted by my sordid, dark, sinfulness. I begin to understand I am not only saved by grace, but sustained by grace. By God’s grace, I begin to pursue Jesus hard! Jesus becomes the great treasure of my heart and the joy and delight of my life.

I don’t stick out my chest and say, “look at me, and how good I have become.” The truth is, my mission statement becomes, “may He increase as I decrease.” The point is not look how good I am, but look how good, majestic, and beautiful Jesus is!


The first step to a gospel-awakened heart is brokenness over your sin. The longer I walk with Jesus, the more I am confronted with my personal sinfulness. The natural result is a recognition for my desperate need for grace.

If the Christian life is all about getter better and self-improvement, that will lead to self-righteousness. The person who views Christianity as self-improvement talks more about themselves and what they do, than Jesus and what he already did.

This was the central problem of the Pharisee. Luke 18 says, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus: ‘God I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But, the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’

Christian growth is growth into grace which provides empowerment to pursue Jesus as the great gift of God. The longer we walk with Jesus, the more we keenly recognize our need for his grace. The first step and really every step to a gospel-awakened heart is brokenness over your sin which leads you to drink deeply from the fountain of grace!

John 7:37-38, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water,’”


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