Blind Eyes Opened: A Holy Week Devo

Introduction:

This devotional is a way to slow down and consider the events that led to Jesus’ death and resurrection. It’s set up so you can read one section a day from Palm Sunday to Easter, but feel free to pick it up whenever and use it on a timeline that works for you. However you choose to go about it, we’re glad you picked this copy up. So, grab a pen and your Bible, and let’s jump in!

Sunday, March 24

Read Matthew 20:29-34

Just before the end of his life, before what we know and celebrate as Holy Week in our churches, Jesus stopped and compassionately opened the eyes of two blind men sitting by the side of the road. He’s almost done with miracles, except for what’s coming in the temple, but he opened the eyes of the blind as he entered the holy city one last time. Their blind eyes were opened, and so they followed him, and with their restored eyes they beheld the Messiah as he was about to rescue the whole world.

If we’re feeling like this is all just a little too familiar, this year, as we approach Easter, let’s walk with eyes made fresh by Jesus’ healing touch. Let’s pray for his hand to remove our blindness. Let’s look at his last week, everything he does and says with eyes and hearts renewed, as if opened for the first time, in a way that only Jesus can do.

Matthew 21:1-17

“Tell Daughter Zion, ‘See, your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey’” (Matt. 21:5).

Gentle. Most kings could not have been described as gentle. Many of them earned their thrones through bloodshed, oppression of the weak, and terror.

And then there’s Jesus.

Gentle, and mounted not on a war horse, but on a donkey. So gentle in fact, that children, blind, and disabled people, arguably some of the most vulnerable people in the population, felt safe in approaching him.

Reflect

When you think about approaching Jesus, what makes him feel safe or unsafe to you?

Where have your eyes felt blind to him recently?

Read Psalm 118 (note the connection between 118:26-27 and Matthew 21:9)

Pray:

Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David. Open our eyes. Again and again as we follow you we forget to keep our eyes open to you, and they wander to shiny things that pass us by for a moment but do not satisfy our souls. Gentle King Jesus, remind us that we are safe to approach you daily, for you have great compassion for those who need healing. We join with the crowds today and cry out Hosanna (praise) to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven! And we confess that often our sin joins with those who cried out “crucify him!” in the end. King Jesus, we praise you for your mercy on us, for your death secured our life, and your life teaches us to live. Gentle King Jesus, teach us to wait well for your return.

Monday, March 25

Read Matthew 21:18-22:46

Jesus spends so much of his ministry with the vulnerable, the outcast, and the marginalized. He heals the sick, lays hands on the untouchable, and eats with sinners. Yet during Holy Week, he spends much of his days in discourse with the Religious Leaders. He teaches in parables, pointing out the errors in their ways in a traditionally cloaked manner. But they weren’t veiled so thickly that the chief priests and Pharisees couldn’t tell he was speaking about them (Matt. 21:45). Their eyes hadn’t been physically blinded, but their hearts seemed to have been.

It seems like Jesus kept these long discourses with the religious leaders until the end of his life because he knew they would kill him, but he was still meeting them where they were at. He was offering them a chance to know him in a way that spoke to their hearts—through their minds—through all that they knew of the Scriptures, he was showing them that they’d gotten it wrong. I don’t think he was intentionally just trying to tick them off so they’d murder him and thus fulfill the will of God. I think he was meeting them just like he’d met the woman at the well and offered her what she needed. Just like he met Zacchaeus and offered him what he needed. He offered himself.

Here Jesus was, the fulfillment of all the scriptures these religious leaders knew and claimed to love, offering discourse with them. Perhaps offering them one last chance to see, know, and believe. One last chance to have their blind eyes restored before he died at their hands.

Reflect

Have you been tempted to think that the religious leaders were beyond the bounds of Jesus’ saving grace?

Have you ever been tempted to think you were beyond the bounds of Jesus’ saving grace? Either because you were the prodigal son or the elder brother who rejected the Father’s radical love?

Read Psalm 23

Pray:

Have mercy on us, Lord Jesus, when our eyes and our hearts are blinded to you. You offer yourself to all, even the self-righteous who can’t see our own need of you. Remind us daily of our need for your mercy, and our need to be merciful. All authority on heaven and earth is yours, and yours alone. Open our eyes to the ways in which we may have grown to love the scriptures more than you, Jesus. In the scriptures we find you, and you are the source of our life and joy. Keep our eyes on you Jesus. Help us to love you with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Read Matthew 23:1-39

Jesus spent a lot of time in his ministry calling people to live lives that truthfully portrayed what they said they believed. If someone said they believed in him, he called them to follow him. Many times he said if someone loves me, they will obey what I command. Just prior to this, he had told the Pharisees that the greatest commandment to be obeyed was to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and secondly to love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 23 is a lament from Jesus to and about the religious leaders who claimed power, authority, and honor, without truly obeying God’s greatest commandments in their hearts. Jesus told the crowds and his disciples, “do whatever they tell you, and observe it. But don’t do what they do, because they don’t practice what they teach. They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4). Self-adoration, power, and hypocrisy led the religious leaders to a lifestyle of outward obedience but inward decay. Jesus lamented over the way the ones tasked with shepherding the people of God had confused their role and lost sight of the way of the Lord.

Jesus lamented over the religious leaders’ misuse of their role, calling them blind guides, blind fools, and blind people throughout his admonishment of them. Their blindness to the way of God had caused them to miss the coming of the very One for whom they said they were waiting.

Woe indeed.

Matthew 24:1-26:5

The rest of his teaching has been interpreted as “the end times” in such a variety of ways it can get messy to try to boil down his teaching for a brief devotional. But Matthew 24:13 is important for our hearts when the days get long and maybe our suffering or our waiting is going on longer than we hoped, or we’re afraid at what’s to come in our world. Jesus said, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Endurance is hard, but holy work. Many of Jesus’ followers didn’t even endure to the end, fleeing from his side as he hung on the cross. Let us cling to Jesus as the women did who stayed with Jesus until the end.

Reflect

Lent is a season of reflection, confession, and repentance. Have you been struck by any area of life where your actions aren’t living in step with what you say you believe or with the call Jesus placed on his followers to love God and love others?

How has Jesus opened your eyes to the need for endurance in this walk with him?

Read Psalm 37:23-31

Pray:

Blessed are you, Lord our God, sustainer of all things. When our hearts are heavy and our minds are wrung with fear, remind us that life with you is a call to endurance until the end. Sustain us through days when obedience feels like burden, bring us to the days when obedience feels like delight. Carry us through until our inside matches our outside and we are whitewashed tombs no longer. Help us to love you with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love others as ourselves.

Read Matthew 26:6-16

This story has often been combined with the story of the anointing by the “sinful woman” in Luke, yet they differ enough that it’s likely they both occurred as separate anointings. The woman in this story is not named, but her actions reveal how much Jesus was worth to her.

As she anointed his head with an incredibly costly perfumed oil, her motives were questioned—why wasn’t this money given to the poor? Jesus assured his followers that her eyes were open to who he was and this anointing was prophetic—she was anointing his body for his impending burial. In Jewish custom, kings’ heads were anointed before their service. What was coming for Jesus was the ultimate act of selfless service he would make as the true King of the universe. She had prophetically prepared him for his burial, and Jesus commends her greatly for it. In her book, The Ministry of Women in the New Testament, scholar Dorothy A. Lee says, “No other action by a disciple is given quite this significance in the Gospels. To comprehend, honor, and proclaim the death of Jesus as divine King lies at the heart of ministry and is exemplified by the woman’s intelligent and insightful action. That is how the passion narrative begins.”

Her lavishly generous action is then directly contrasted with the disciple Judas, who subsequently finds the chief priests and offers to sell his master to them for the price of a slave.

To the woman, the Messiah was worth everything.

To Judas, the Messiah was worth next to nothing.

What is Jesus worth to you?

Reflect

Jesus often talked about the cost of following him. Has following Jesus cost you anything?

Spend time honestly reflecting on what Jesus is worth to you? What are your motives in following him?

Read Psalm 49

Pray:

Have mercy on us, King Jesus, for we’ve often treated you more like Judas did than the woman who anointed you as a King for burial. Help us honor you with our lives, and not pay mere lip service but toss you aside the moment following you becomes inconvenient. Keep our eyes open to you, and help us endure, even when it costs us more than we’d ever hoped or expected. For we know that it’s in those moments that you are closest to us. Draw near to us as we draw near to you this week. Open our eyes Lord and help us to love you and love others.

Read Matthew 26:17-75

This whole section is brimming with betrayal. Namely, the betrayal of Jesus into the Chief Priest’s hands by Judas, but also the disciples’ betrayal of Jesus when he asked them to stay awake and pray, the betrayal of the disciple who cut off the soldier’s ear, betraying everything Jesus had taught them with his words and his actions. And especially Peter’s betrayal of his Master King. Peter—bull-headed, righteous, and zealous Peter— who refused to believe Jesus when he prophesied it would happen, betrayed his Rabbi with a cursed oath in the end. No one can keep their word in the end and Jesus is betrayed.

I wonder what happened to the two blind men who’d been healed and had decided to follow Jesus. What did they see of this? Did they witness from afar the mob approaching Jesus in the garden? Did they stand at a distance and watch the proceedings in the courtyard? Did their healed eyes fill with tears as the one who gave them sight was accused of blasphemy? Surely the one who heals the lame and gives sight to the blind couldn’t be anyone less than the Son of God. And yet here he was being accused of blasphemy and on the cusp of death.

And what of the woman who had anointed Jesus? Did she watch what was happening under the cover of darkness with a heavy heart, knowing what Jesus had said was coming true before her eyes? “By pouring this perfume on my body, she had prepared me for burial” (Matt. 26:12). Despite all he knew of Jesus, Peter refused to believe what Jesus said about what was soon to come. Peter couldn’t fathom denying his own master, even though Jesus had said it would be so. Sometimes our own certainty can be the very thing that blinds us. Jesus was very rarely who anyone expected him to be. But, he is exactly who he said he was. We just need to have our eyes and hearts renewed to be able to see and believe.

Reflect

Think honestly about who you expect Jesus to be. What are you hoping you’ll get from Jesus?

Who did Jesus say he was (with his words and his actions)? (Luke 4:18-19 is one example. What are some others?)

Read Psalm 71:1-8

Pray:

Have mercy on us, King Jesus. Keep our eyes fixed on you, even when our hearts may long to betray you and the temptation or burden of sin feels too heavy to bear. Help us to see the things we long for through redeemed eyes that learn to long for you the most. Holy Spirit, keep our eyes open to the needs of others and keep us awake to the ways in which you are working, even now that might surprise us. Help us learn from Peter, to humbly believe you always.

Read Matthew 27:1-61

The humiliation of a Roman execution cannot be overstated. Naked, flayed, and displayed as a symbol for public ridicule, Jesus, the Great and Gentle King of the Universe, did not die a noble death by any sense of the imagination. It’s no wonder he prayed three times in the garden that this cup would pass by him if possible. He was likely no stranger to seeing bodies strung up along the road to enforce the Pax Romana (Roman Peace). But he had come to bring a different sort of peace. A lasting and wholistic peace between humankind and God himself.

Jesus’ death occurred around the time of the evening offering at the temple, meaning priests would have been inside ministering when he died.1 They’d have felt the earth tremble and seen the temple curtain ripped in two, from top to bottom. This curtain that kept everyone protected from the Most Holy Place now stood open, the barrier removed by the blood of Jesus. Blood spilled as the evening offering, not offered in the temple, but offered outside the city gates (Hebrews 13:12) so that all might be saved, not just the Jews. And as soon as Jesus died, whose eyes were opened to who he was? The Roman centurion. As Jesus’ death shook the ground, the soldier proclaimed the truth: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Matt. 27:54).

It’s also significant to note that burials were usually not allowed for crucified criminals. Joseph of Arimathea took great risk in joining the women disciples at the cross and requesting Jesus’ body so he could bury it in his family tomb.2 Usually, a crucified body would have been left on the cross for the birds to eat away at, to truly make a statement to anyone else wanting to commit the same crimes. So, Joseph requesting Jesus’ body to be buried in a tomb showed great mercy, compassion, and affection for Jesus, since Jewish custom required a burial as soon as possible after death.

Finally, just as two women were the first to witness Jesus’ life conceived in Mary’s womb (Mary and Elizabeth in Luke 1), two women are seen here as the final witnesses to his life ended and buried.

They sit alone, facing the tomb. Full of grief and shock, no doubt, not knowing that soon they will be the first witnesses of the Lord Resurrected.

A lot of significant things happen on this day in Jesus’ life. What was something that stood out to you this time as you read, as if your eyes had been opened to it for the first time?

Imagine that you are one of the ones who were blind but now you’ve been healed, and you’ve followed Jesus for one week, and now you’ve just seen him beaten and crucified—a death reserved for criminals. But when he died, the sky grew dark, the ground shook and the temple curtain was torn in two. What is happening in your mind? In your heart? How do you make sense of it all?

Reflect Continued

Now imagine that you are the women who have followed Jesus for the majority of his ministry and just witnessed the same things and you’re now sitting and staring at the large stone in front of his tomb. What is happening in your mind? In your heart? How do you make sense of it all after all that you’ve seen walking with Jesus day after day for 3 years?

Pray:

Have mercy on us, King Jesus. Whether we’ve followed you for a week or a lifetime, may we never grow accustomed to your death. May it always spark grief in our hearts that it even had to be so, but let that grief do its good work in us to make us humble and compassionate followers of you. May we always be comforted that you were a man who was familiar with sorrow. You joined in our suffering, knowing what it is like to feel pain, anguish, heartache, and grief. When we suffer now, we do so knowing that it brings us all the more near to you at the cross. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Comfort us, even now Lord Jesus, as we mourn your death before we celebrate your risen life.

Notes:

1. Charles L. Quarles, “Matthew,” in CSB Everyday Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2018), Matthew 27:50-51.

2. Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 123.

Sarturday, March 30

God Rested | Andrew Peterson

So they took His body down / The man who said He was the resurrection and the life

Was lifeless on the ground now / The sky was red as blood along the blade of night

As the sabbath fell they shrouded Him in linen / They dressed Him like a wound / The rich man and the women / They laid Him in the tomb

Six days shall you labor / The seventh is the Lord’s / In six He made the earth and all the heavens / But He rested on the seventh / God rested / He said that it was finished / And the seventh day, He blessed it / God rested

So they laid their hopes away / They buried all their dreams about the kingdom He proclaimed / And they sealed them in the grave / As a holy silence fell on all Jerusalem

But the Pharisees were restless / Pilate had no peace / And Peter’s heart was reckless / Mary couldn’t sleep

But God rested

Six days shall you labor / The seventh is the Lord’s / In six He made the earth and all the heavens / But He rested on the seventh / God rested / He worked ‘til it was finished / And the seventh day, He blessed it / He said that it was good / And the seventh day, He blessed it / God rested

The sun went down / The sabbath faded / The holy day was done and all creation waited

God Rested

Andrew Peterson

Reflect

Spend time in silence today considering Jesus’ followers had to spend an entire day shrouded in grief while their master lay dead in a tomb and they observed the sabbath.

Read Psalm 130

Pray:

Have mercy on us, Lord our God, for we still often find ourselves striving to please you, even though you are fully satisfied in Jesus’ finished work on the cross on our behalf. Help us to rest in him fully today, tomorrow, and each day to come.

Sunday, March 31

Read Matthew 28

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were last pictured sitting facing the tomb on Friday night. Their grief hung heavy around them as their Master lay entombed behind impenetrable stone. Now these same two women return as the first day of the week dawned. The last witnesses of his buried body, they are now the first witnesses of his resurrection. Their eyes were the first to behold his risen body as he met them on their way to tell the other disciples what they had found. When the remaining eleven disciples saw Jesus in Galilee, their response is actually mixed. Some worshipped, and some doubted. We read in other gospel accounts that some thought he was a ghost, other than that, we don’t know exactly what caused their doubts, but surely we can sympathize. If we had witnessed the torturous death of someone we’d known and loved, perhaps we’d be a little doubtful if they suddenly came back to life. But surprisingly, Jesus doesn’t chastise their doubt. He doesn’t praise their worship.

He has one response to both. “Jesus came near...”

He drew closer to them. To the ones who worshipped, surely they were joyful to be closer to him. And to the ones who doubted, Jesus didn’t shame them for their doubt. He simply drew closer so they could see him better. Maybe their eyes just needed more time with him in the picture to fully understand

He drew near and reminded them of who he was and gave them a new task. They’d been following Jesus for three years now; now it was their turn to go and do likewise, to tell the whole world the good news of the crucified but now risen savior!

This Easter, if another year of celebrating a dead man coming back to life gives you a little bit of pause and doubt, rest assured, you are in good company. Even some among the disciples doubted. But Jesus drew near to them, just as he will draw near to you if you let him.

And if another year of celebrating a dead man rising from the dead causes you to worship joyously again and again, rest assured, you are also in good company. And Jesus draws near to you as well.

He is worthy of honor, glory, and praise. But he also can handle your questions, doubt, and fear.

Finally, it’s noted elsewhere in the Bible that he also then appeared to many others after his resurrection (Acts 1:1-3, 1 Corinthians 15:6, among others). I can only imagine what those two blind men who’d been healed thought when their eyes saw the resurrected Jesus standing before them. Perhaps Jesus even winked at them, as if to say, this is why I healed your eyes. So you could see this.

Reflect

What does the resurrection of Jesus mean? How does it affirm all he did and said during his life and ministry?

Reflect Continued

If Jesus’ resurrection is true, have you considered what that means for your life? Does thinking about Jesus cause you any fear or doubt? Why? Or what about Jesus makes you joyful and want to worship him?

Read Psalm 117

Pray:

Blessed are you, Risen King Jesus. You conquered death and rose, victorious! And now as we carry on each day Lord, remind us that we are not our own, that we belong to you. We are your people, redeemed and made new by your death and resurrection. Keep our eyes on you.

This song can be our final prayer:

I Am Not My Own Keith & Kristyn Getty

He is risen!