Easter Stories: A 5-Day Reading Plan Sample

The King Comes

The Biggest Story is all about Jesus—the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the Snake Crusher. And believe it or not, the story that is told is mainly about his death. Yes, there’s the Christmas story about his birth. And there are plenty of stories about his miracles and his ministry. But the biggest thing about the Biggest Story is that Jesus died—and of course, that he didn’t stay dead.

That’s why the Bible tells us nothing about Jesus the toddler, or Jesus the teenager, or Jesus the college student (okay, there wasn’t college yet), but it does tell us a lot about the last week of Jesus’s life. The last week started happily on Sunday, but for just a few hours. Then things got sad, sadder, and sadder still until Friday and Saturday were the saddest days in the history of the world.

Then Sunday came, and it turned out that all the very sad things were a part of God’s very amazing plan. But we’ll get to that Sunday soon enough. If you skip the sad parts of the story, the happy parts won’t seem nearly as happy as they really are.

So, let’s start with the first Sunday of the last week of Jesus’s life. We call the day Palm Sunday because the crowds lined the road with their coats and with palm branches like a king was coming to town.

And he was! The king was Jesus, and as he rode to Jerusalem on a donkey, the disciples and the crowd of pilgrims gathered round to sing his praises. “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they shouted. “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!”

In other words, they believed Jesus was the Messiah they had been waiting for. What a happy day.

Except it wasn’t happy for everyone. The Pharisees didn’t like all the attention Jesus was getting, and they didn’t think Jesus deserved the praise he was receiving. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “tell your disciples to be quiet.”

Jesus made clear he didn’t agree with the professional party poopers. “If these people were silent,” he said to the Pharisees, “the stones would start singing in their place.” You can’t shut up the whole world when its Creator comes to town.

As happy as the crowds were on Palm Sunday, by the time Jesus made it near the city, his smiles had turned to tears. He looked at the great city of Jerusalem and wept because he knew what was going to happen. The people were going to reject him. They were refusing to follow the true King. They were going to kill the one who came to save them. Jesus cried for the sad days that would come upon Jerusalem in the years ahead. That was hard.

Harder still, Jesus knew on that happy Palm Sunday that the hardest, saddest days of all would be the ones he would have to endure over the next week.

PRAYER: You are the Savior, King Jesus! Give us life to sing and shout your praise. Amen.

This Plan was adapted from The Biggest Story Bible Storybook by Kevin DeYoung, Illustrated by Don Clark