Holy Week: It Was All for You and Me

This week we commemorate the week that changed the future for everyone who counts themselves amongst the believers and followers of Jesus Christ. Whether or not you are a believer, it does not change the fact that Jesus died on the cross at Calvary for you as well as for every believer. His death was a sacrificial death, the payment of the ransom price demanded for the sins of all. By accepting Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, and by believing on Him as the Son of God, confessing ourselves as sinners in need of salvation, we are given the promise of eternity with Him. When it is said that He died for sinners, that means that amongst them can be found you and me, for we are all sinners, without exception, and redemption is only to be found through Jesus Christ. There is no other way to God other than through Him.  Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. (John 14 verse 6).


Yesterday we celebrated Palm Sunday, the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a white colt as crowds of people shouted Hosannah! Hosannah!, and laid palm branches and cloaks on the road in front of Him. Today we read how He chased the money-changers and traders out of the Temple which had become a market-place for people selling doves, lambs and goats for sacrificial offerings and cattle, in addition to the money-changers who exchanged the various currencies of visitors to the Temple for the half-shekel Atonement Tax.


Read what is recorded in Holy Scripture in Matthew Chapter 21:
1 And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth'phage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If any one says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,' and he will send them immediately." 4This took place to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 "Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass." 6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the ass and the colt, and put their garments on them, and he sat thereon. 8 Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9And the crowds that went before him and that followed him shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, "Who is this?" 11 And the crowds said, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee." 12 And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you make it a den of robbers." (NIV)