This collection began with a question most people never think to ask: why does Easter move?
The answer turns out to be more than astronomical. It reaches back to creation — to a moon God designed, in the beginning, to govern sacred time — and forward through the deliberate theological choices of the early church, which declared its independence from the old covenant calendar by anchoring the resurrection to a new one. The date wanders for a reason. Every year, Easter demands to be found.
That opening question sets the frame for everything that follows. Holy Week was not a tragedy that overtook an unsuspecting teacher. It was a precisely executed design. Jesus entered Jerusalem knowing what would happen there and at what cost. The crowd that welcomed him got every ceremony right and every expectation wrong. The disciples who gathered in an upper room that Thursday night did not understand they were attending the hinge event of history. The arrest that followed, the trial, the cross, the burial — each step was anticipated, foretold, and submitted to deliberately. And on the third day, the tomb was empty.
These five essays walk that week in order — from the question behind the date to the fact that changes everything.
Holy Week — Collection Contents
Part 1 — The Shifting Date of Easter Why the date of Easter changes each year — the astronomy, the history, and the theology behind a moveable feast. The answer reaches back to the fourth day of creation and forward through a deliberate decision by the early church that is still written into the calendar today.
Part 2 — The King Has Come The crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem got every ceremony right and every expectation wrong — cheering a King they did not know, for a kingdom they could not imagine. He wept over them while they celebrated. That asymmetry is the thread that runs through the whole of Holy Week.
Part 3 — The Upper Room The events of the Last Supper — foot washing, the Eucharist, Judas, and Gethsemane — as the hinge on which the entire history of redemption turns. The disciples thought they were celebrating Passover. They were — the last one that would ever need to be celebrated.
Part 4 — Relationship The whole of Scripture is the account of God working to restore what was broken in the garden. Holy Week is where he finished the work. This essay traces that thread — from the curtain hung between God and man to the moment the curtain was torn in two.
Part 5 — He Is Risen The resurrection of Jesus is not a past-tense historical event. It is a present-tense reality — and the witnesses who encountered the risen Jesus form an unbroken chain that runs from an empty tomb in Jerusalem to your door.
The journey begins with The Shifting Date of Easter.