2024 Holy Week-The Savior We Need

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Artist: Thi Anh Duong (Sunshine) Nguyen, a senior at St. Croix Lutheran Academy in West St. Paul, Minnesota, created this digital image of Jesus. Sunshine said she studied the cross hanging in her art classroom and decided to portray Jesus’ expression as he dies. “Though he is feeling the pain of torture, he knows he is fulfilling his promise to us, so he has tears of relief and even joy at this victorious moment.” Sunshine plans to attend art school, where she will major in animation and minor in art directing.

2024 Holy Week

Two thousand years ago, God’s people were expecting the Messiah to be a conquering hero who would rescue them from their Roman oppressors.

Instead, he came as a suffering servant who died at the hands of those Romans. This is what Paul called the foolishness of the cross.

But the Bible makes it clear that the Jesus those people received—the Jesus we are blessed to call our Savior today—is far greater than any we could ever have designed on our own.

These devotions will show us that Jesus truly is the Savior we need.

Acknowledgments

Concept: Professor Luke Thompson / Devotions: MLC faculty members

Editor: Laurie Gauger / Copy Editor: Heidi Schoof / Digital media: Valerie Fischer

Podcast recordings: Benjamin Matzke / Coordination team: Tami Board, Christy Frey

Palm Sunday

A Savior Who Rules Me in Righteousness

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9

It’s tradition. Hundreds of thousands gather when a professional team wins their sport’s championship. They gather for a parade, so that the crowds of adoring fans can hail their victorious team.

On Palm Sunday, the gospel writers tell us about a kind of victory parade— only, in this case, the crowds were not celebrating a past victory but anticipating one to come.

Jesus was riding into Jerusalem, and the crowds were convinced that he was the Messiah, the anointed Son of David who would redeem the people of Israel and set them free from their enemies. In the minds of many of them that day, that enemy was the Roman Empire, and the redemption was casting off the Romans’ iron rule and restoring the kingdom of Israel.

In not too many days, many in the crowd would be disappointed. Jesus’ enemies among the Jewish leaders would arrest him, and those Romans he was supposed to conquer would put him to an ignominious death on a cross.

What went wrong? Were the crowds mistaken in identifying Jesus as the Messiah who would bring redemption? Not at all!

Centuries earlier, Zechariah, with a prophet’s precision, pointed ahead to

Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and he told the people to rejoice. Their king was coming to them! Yes, he would come to them in lowliness, riding not on a royal stallion but on a humble donkey—but all the same he would come to them as their king.

Yes, hidden in that humility was the truth that the victory belonged to Jesus. “See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious.” Hidden beneath the shame of the cross was the glory of good news. On the cross, Jesus defeated the devil, silenced sin’s charges against us, and robbed death of its sting.

The mistake the crowd made was that they just weren’t thinking big enough. Jesus wasn’t there to free his people from a temporary, earthly enemy. He was there to free them from their sin so that he could rule over them in righteousness for eternity.

This Palm Sunday, join your voice to the shouts of joy. Your king has come, lowly and riding on a donkey, all so that you could live under him in his kingdom eternally!

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, give me joy in the eternal victory you have won for me. Amen.

Author: Rev. Jacob Behnken serves Martin Luther College as dean of chapel.

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A Savior Who Withstood Temptation

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16

Are you a loser? I am! I’m a loser every day. I promise myself that I will never, ever, again speak impatient words to my loved ones. Yet I still say them. I pledge to myself that I will always be content, no matter what trouble God allows into my life. Yet sinful thoughts of discontentment and frustration often fill my heart.

When it comes to temptation, I’m a loser.

Are you a loser? Do you struggle with temptation? Do you give in to temptation?

Take heart! Jesus was true God. And he was true man. What does that mean for you? The writer to the Hebrews said, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are.”

Jesus knows your struggle. He fought temptation each day for 33 years. He suffered dearly each time he faced temptation.

But he never lost. “We have one who has been tempted in every way, just as

we are—yet he did not sin.” This Holy Week we remember the terrible cost of suffering Jesus paid to take away our sin. But Jesus also saved you from your sins by living a perfect life for 33 years. Jesus withstood temptation perfectly. For you!

When they nailed him to the cross, Jesus paid the debt for your sin, and you received the credit for his perfect life. You are holy.

So take heart! Do not be afraid! When you lose the battle and fall into sin, go back to Jesus again and again with confidence—for forgiveness, and for help to fight temptation in the future.

Jesus is the Savior we all need. Jesus withstood temptation for you.

Prayer:

Jesus, so often I fail in the battle against temptation. Help me remember that you never failed. You never sinned. Thank you for being perfect in my place. You have felt my struggle. Forgive me. Help me live better tomorrow. Amen.

Author: Rev. Joel Thomford serves Martin Luther College as an admissions counselor.

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A Savior Who Seeks Me When I’m Lost

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10

He had made his money as a savvy businessman. Okay, his ethics weren’t always exactly pure, but, as he would explain, “Those were the rules of the trade.” What he meant was that, as a tax collector in the Roman system, it was understood that he could include some extra fees. Among the Jewish people, tax collectors were considered despicable and dishonest instruments of foreign oppression.

Luke 19 sets us into the account of Zacchaeus, the tax official whom Jesus met in Jericho shortly before his Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem. Zacchaeus may have seemed financially secure, but he was lost inside his own culture—and inside his own conscience.

Then there was the young college student who admitted that she was anxious about the future. She decided that an extended trip far from home was what she needed to discover her sense of purpose. But the longer she traveled, the more lost she felt. Confusion and worry stole across her face as she finally blurted out: “I mean, who am I? What is my life for?”

Young or old, modern or ancient, rich or poor, people will always have a sense that life is empty and lacking meaning unless they have the peace and perspective God provides through faith in Jesus.

Although he was divine and eternal, Jesus was a “Son of Man” in every way. He entered human time and space to redeem it. From infancy to adolescence to adulthood, Jesus faced every single earthly care and concern

with the desire and the power to make things right. He never lacked for purpose or direction. Jesus lived to follow God’s heavenly will and to “finish his work” (John 4:34).

Whatever we, by our own powers, are hesitant or unwilling to do—to forgive, to consider the needs of others before our own, to tell the truth, to view life in eternal (not earthly) terms—Jesus, the Son of Man, did.

Jesus didn’t pass Zacchaeus by. And he doesn’t pass us by. He stops to say, “I’m coming to your house today.” He comes to redeem and sanctify our lives. Jesus invites us to follow him along the path of life’s journey and to remember how he swallowed up death when he rose victorious in Jerusalem. He will never abandon his unrelenting desire to “seek and to save the lost.”

Prayer: Dear Lord, help me every day to see life through your eyes. Amen.

Author: Rev. Paul Koelpin serves Martin Luther College as a professor of theology and history.

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A Savior Who Gives True Sight to the Truly Blind

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” John 9:39

The miracles of Jesus recorded in the gospels brought help to people back then, but they also help us by pointing to greater blessings available to us. That is what we learn here at the end of a miracle story in John 9.

A man had been born blind and remained that way until Jesus came to him and gave him sight. When Jesus came back to him somewhat later, he did something even more wonderful. By revealing his identity more fully and inviting the man to believe in him, he enabled the man to become one of his followers.

In the words quoted above, Jesus seizes the opportunity to turn his miraculous gift of vision into a broader lesson for our benefit. The physical sight he gave to the blind man foreshadowed the spiritual sight he gave that man and gives to us. We enter the world spiritually blind, unable to know the truth about God, unable to find a remedy for our fallen condition, unable to enjoy the beatific vision of God in heaven. But Jesus changes all that when he causes us to see him by faith as the light of the world and the way to the Father.

The other side of the coin is that some are content with their own distorted moral vision and have no use for Jesus. What will become of them? If they

persist in self-sufficiency, they will go from bad to worse. They are the ones “who see” and “will become blind.”

The judgment of which Jesus speaks is a division that begins already on earth when people hear about him. Those who reject Jesus doom themselves to blindness, but those who receive him see his light in this world and will see God face to face in the world to come.

There are many ways to speak of the purpose of Jesus’ coming. He came to give his life as a ransom (Mark 10:45) by keeping his appointment with death on Good Friday. He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). He came to testify to the truth (John 18:37). Today we are reminded that he came so that the spiritually blind may truly see.

Prayer:

Father, let Jesus, the light of the world, shine brightly in our hearts. Amen.

Author: Rev. Joel Fredrich serves Martin Luther College as a professor of Greek.

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Maundy Thursday

A Savior Who Is Also My Friend

[Jesus said,] “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

“Pooh!” he whispered.

“Yes, Piglet?”

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

A.A. Milne’s stories starring Winnie the Pooh capture something utterly charming in the friendship between Pooh and Piglet. Always simple. Never superficial.

In these lonely, superficial times, when the quality of a “friend” is measured in “likes,” how many people know what friendship is or what it looks like? How many broken souls have never known the transformative power of a single wholesome companionship? Does this thing we call true friendship even exist—that someone should care to know you, sit with you when you’re sad, run when you call? Is there anyone who sticks?

These aren’t our natural inclinations as children of the fall.

Among the many astonishments when the King of the Universe appeared among us in human skin, here is a different sort of surprise. Along the way to saving the world, the Son of God made friends.

The word “servant” is no longer big enough. In a stunning condescension, Almighty God revealed himself as a friend—that special sort of friend who tells you things, who whispers things in your ear. He doesn’t want you to be left in the dark. He lets you in on his “business.” He trusts you with his beautiful secrets, what he’s up to in the world.

“Everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” He crossed a space we cannot comprehend just to tell you this: God has a friendly heart.

It’s Maundy Thursday. On this day Jesus washed his disciples’ feet—so this is what it looks like! He passed out the bread and wine, his body and blood, your forgiveness—so this is the sound and taste of it!

He is my Lord, but not this alone. The King of the Universe is my friend. So simple. So beyond all understanding.

Friendship—so there is such a thing! There is a way for the friendless to know what the word means, a way for my soul to be sure of him.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

Prayer:

Jesus, you call me to more than service toward you. You call me into the very friendship of God. There are no words. Amen.

Author: Rev. Mark Paustian serves Martin Luther College as a professor of Hebrew and English.

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Good Friday

A Savior Who Was Forsaken in My Place

About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). Matthew 27:46

Can you imagine a sermon just one paragraph long? Probably. One sentence? Maybe. One word? Unlikely. How about a sermon as short as a single letter—in fact the smallest letter—of the alphabet? Yes, you can imagine that, if you know the preacher. It was Jesus. From his cross Jesus shouts the same one-letter sermon twice. Look at the Hebrew word Eli in Jesus’ quotation from David’s psalm in Matthew’s gospel. The “i” in Eli is a one-letter sermon. It’s the “my” of “my God” (El) in Matthew’s translation. That “my” speaks eloquent volumes.

As Jesus shouts to his God from his cross, three hours of darkness, begun at Good Friday’s noon, come to an end. God-forsaken, Jesus endures those hours in the agony of hell. Understand “God-forsaken” and “hell” literally. Forget the flippant way that our culture treats such words. What Jesus goes through for half an afternoon of blackest night does not just “hurt like hell.” It is hell. His God withdraws his love. His Father is no longer well-pleased. Jesus stops being his beloved Son. Instead, “God [makes] him who had no sin to be sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus is now sin itself—indeed, The Sinner himself. And God punishes sin, all sin, in Jesus with the full force of his anger.

Yet “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is not a rhetorical question, asked only to underline this apparent injustice. Jesus really prays for an answer. In a way we cannot understand, the all-knowing Son of God

and Son of Man really did not know why. That means worse suffering. The answer—the world’s salvation—would ease his torture. Yet amid that unfathomable pain—of body and especially soul—he still calls upon “my God.” Even in his agony, Jesus remains faithful to his God as our brother and substitute. He trusts perfectly that God is just and will answer justly.

You have that answer. You are not forsaken by God, because Jesus was forsaken for you. You are able to pray “my God,” because Jesus prayed it in your place. And his Spirit made you what God now calls you—“ my child”—in another one-letter sermon.

Prayer: Jesus, my Savior, thank you for enduring the agony of hell so that I can know the joy of heaven. Amen.

Author: Rev. Daniel Balge serves Martin Luther College as a professor of Greek and German.

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A Savior Who Carries Me Through Trials

But now, this is what the LORD says— he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

Isaiah 43:1-2

We want to travel in something strong and capable. In 2023 people purchasing a new vehicle chose to buy pickups and SUVs four out of five times rather than something small and zippy. The top three sellers were all trucks. What do we want and need? A large carrying capacity and the capability to handle bad roads. Isn’t that what we need also in a savior?

Saturday of Holy Week is a traveling day. We move from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, from the darkness of sin and death to light and life in our risen Savior. Is the trip from our past to the future a rough road? Jesus can carry us through, as God promises in Isaiah’s words above.

God knows well the load that we are. Picture a crowd at an auction around

a guy who just bought an elephant. They say, “Well, quite a purchase, but how in the world are you gonna get that beast home?”

The carrying capacity of our Savior can haul anything. He weighed every sin and shouldered it on the cross. He has “redeemed” us, he bought us back from our sins, and he will bring us safely home. In these verses God promises he will carry us through—not around, but through—all the trials. He identifies obstacles we face: the deep flowing water and the fires, picturing perhaps the opposites of overwhelming despair and sizzling arrogance.

Jesus carries us through—from this dark life to the new one coming, from Good Friday to Easter. These are the events that fulfill God’s promise in Isaiah 43. “Do not fear . . . you are mine. . . . I will be with you.”

Jesus was there on Good Friday to haul away all our sins, and he was there on Easter to open the door for us to a new and eternal life. Step in and enjoy the ride!

Prayer:

Dear Lord, as we wait for that morning of light and new life, help us to be astounded at the capacity and capability of your grace. Amen.

Author: Rev. Brian Dose serves Martin Luther College as a professor of English.

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Easter Sunday

A Savior Who Defeated Death

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

Grief is very real for this life.

Easter may seem like a strange day to say this, but it isn’t wrong to grieve. Multiple times I’ve heard people apologize as grief’s tears stain their cheeks.

Grief is very real for this life, since God never intended us to face death. He who united us body and soul never intended us to watch death rip body and soul apart. He didn’t intend us to suffer the separation death causes also between us and those we love.

An unbelieving culture may try to ignore this reality or convince themselves that death is somehow beautiful or natural. Yet every death remains what it’s always been: the breath of God’s judgment withering a sinner in a sinful world. To grieve a death acknowledges that not one of us is what God created us to be.

So, we grieve—but not like “the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” Why not? “For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” Our Jesus, with all our sin fastened to his soul, dies to break sin’s hold on us. As he steps from his grave, he proves his victory for us over sin and sin’s

consequence, death. Death couldn’t hold him, and death can now no longer hold any who fall asleep in him.

Eternal proof of this comes on the second great Easter Day. On the first Easter, no one saw him at the moment when, all alone, he broke from the tomb. But on the second Easter Day, all will see him. And he won’t be alone: with him will be all “those who have fallen asleep in him.”

Yes, Jesus is the Savior we need. He’s defeated death. Soon grief will be no more!

Prayer:

You have died for my transgression, all my sins on you were laid.

You have won for me salvation, on the cross my debt was paid.

From the grave I shall arise and shall meet you in the skies.

Death itself is transitory; I shall lift my head in glory. Amen. (CW 470:3)

Author: Rev. Rich Gurgel serves Martin Luther College as president.

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It is our prayer that the devotions in this booklet will assist you in focusing on the Savior we need in the week leading up to his death and resurrection.