That Was the Week That Was
Imagining Holy Week
by Brian Radcliffe
Suitable for Whole School (Sec)
Aims
To consider why the week leading up to Easter Sunday is so important for Christians.
Preparation and materials
- Optional: you may wish to play the theme tune to the programme That Was the Week That Was, in which case you will also need the means to do so. It is available at: https://youtu.be/-6ThNn7ljz8 (2.43 minutes long)
Assembly
- Optional: play the theme tune to the programme That Was the Week That Was (2.43 minutes long).
Tell the students that in the early 1960s, there was a popular TV programme called That Was the Week That Was, or TW3 as it became known.
Each week, the lyrics of the show’s theme tune changed according to whatever had been in the news. TW3 was rather like Have I Got News for You, in that it satirized the events of the previous week. Satire is used to make fun of people’s mistakes, particularly those made by figures in the public eye. It is a way of pointing out people’s hypocrisies and puncturing their overinflated public images. - Hindsight is a great advantage when we look back at history, whether we are examining what has happened over the past week or events that took place hundreds of years ago. We can see the consequences of words spoken, of actions committed, of plans made, which puts us in a better position to judge.
- Over two thousand years ago, there was a week of events that Christians believe shaped the course of history. Christians call that week Holy Week. It begins on what is known as Palm Sunday and ends on Easter Day.
The focus of the week is the actions and words of the central character, Jesus, a travelling preacher and miracle worker from the town of Nazareth in Palestine. Holy Week was when Jesus brought his ragtag group of followers to the capital city of Jerusalem, in a direct challenge to the secular and religious leadership of his Roman-occupied land. - Holy Week started with a popular welcome into the city on what has become known as Palm Sunday. We can imagine it like the cavalcade that welcomes a cup-winning football team. The week continued with a series of carefully chosen challenges, largely initiated by Jesus, to the corruption and hypocrisy surrounding the Temple, the centre of religious life in the city.
Unsurprisingly, Jesus was arrested. He was tried on some trumped-up charges and eventually executed. Then, there was a pause: the authorities triumphant, Jesus’ followers bereft as they processed the events, the end of their dream. Finally, in a miracle to defy all miracles, Jesus appeared again, no longer dead, but fully alive. And Christianity was born.
Time for reflection
Like all historical events, what happened during Holy Week can be interpreted in various ways.
First, did the events really happen? Historians point to records that reflect the historical accuracy of much of the story of Holy Week. Rebellions like this were not uncommon and many of the characters appear elsewhere in the history of that time.
What about the climax to the story: a crucifixion and then a resurrection? We need to think in a different way about this. If Jesus’ dead body disappeared from the tomb where it was buried, where did it go? If the Romans or Jewish religious leaders had taken the body to stop the tomb from becoming a shrine, they could simply have produced it. If the disciples had stolen the body, the truth would have leaked out eventually. They wouldn’t all have been willing to die under persecution, as many did, to prolong an elaborate con trick. Perhaps Jesus wasn’t even dead when he was placed in the tomb? The description of flogging, crucifixion and stabbing with a spear make this unlikely. The only alternative is that Jesus did rise again to life. But to what purpose?
For Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus was the final part of God’s plan to overcome the evil, the darkness, what the Bible calls sin, that troubles all humanity. This evil is the root cause of all that is wrong in our world: the injustice, the inequality, the poverty, the prejudice and the conflict that we experience around us and in the news.
Christians believe that, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, a way opened up for us as individuals to have a relationship with God and begin to tackle the wrongs in our world. They believe that Jesus’ death and resurrection makes a difference to both ourselves and society. That’s why Holy Week is so important to Christians. It’s the week when the world turned upside down, when everything changed.
Song/music
Any song from ‘Worship songs collection for Holy Week’, available at: https://youtu.be/K-HUP1zORic (over 2 hours long)
Extension activity
Suggest that students follow the events of Holy Week during the school holidays by reading one of the four Gospels a day at a time. It isn’t hard to distinguish the timeline.
The students should start from Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 20.2 or John 12.12. Each day, they should pick out the moods, issues, conflicts and eventual consequences.
