Holy Week Devotional 2022Sample

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

Put this devotion down and go read Genesis 1 through 2:3. Take note of what gets repeated and what doesn’t. It’s okay—I’ll wait… What did you see? Every day, except the second, shows God taking stock of what he did that day and judges it to be good. On the second day, God created the firmament—the barrier between heaven and earth. Why is that, of all things, not called good? Isn’t everything that God made good?

God has woven the threads of redemption throughout all of the scriptures. Everything that came before Christ, as we’ve seen a few ways this week, point to the glorious things that Christ would do. The creation narrative show us the first “work week.” God works for six days and the rests on the seventh. We are made in God’s image, so we do what God does—working six days and resting on the seventh. Seven days are business as usual. On “the eighth day” business as usual comes to an end. On the eighth day, barriers between God and humanity fade away.

One way we see this is through the rite of circumcision. Circumcision is a kind of death, quite literally wounding the bodily member that causes conception. With circumcision, they became full members of God’s covenant people, like Abraham before them, entitled to every promise given to Israel. When Abraham attempted to see God’s promise fulfilled in his own power, Abraham was able to have son with Hagar. But Ishmael was not the child of promise. Only after Abraham receives the covenant of circumcision was Isaac born. The new life God gives is through renouncing the flesh and trusting God who gives life. To be circumcised is to enter into a new kind of life—the life of God’s priestly people. Only God’s people could draw near to God in his temple, whereas the nations of the world had to remain in the outer court. For one week, newborn boys were like everyone else in the world, but on the eighth day they are granted permission to draw closer.

Yet, significant barriers remained. While normal Hebrews were allowed to come into the inner court of the tabernacle and temple, only the priests were allowed to go in. But, for this, the priests had to undergo another transformation. For the first seven days of their ordination ritual, the priests were like every other Hebrew—business as usual. They still didn’t have permission to enter God’s house. But on the eighth day that barrier is taken away—Aaron is granted permission to offer the final sacrifice for his sins, taking the blood into God’s presence, sprinkling the blood himself (Lev. 8-9). On the eighth day—the first day of the new week—Aaron became a high priest, allowed to push past the curtain into the Holy of Holies. On the eighth day, the way to God’s presence is made open. And then we hear, “on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.”

Why was the second day not good? On the second day, God created the barrier between heaven and earth. On the second day, God creates the cosmic “curtain” that stood between God and man. This is why a curtain stood before the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle that Aaron entered. In order to cross the barrier between heaven and earth itself, we needed a much greater priest. Christ is our great high priest. Every priest before him, like Aaron, had to make atonement for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. After sacrificing for his own sins on the eighth day, Aaron was allowed to enter the tabernacle made by hands. But Aaron and his tabernacle were merely shadows of Christ and the true tabernacle. Jesus is the sinless high priest who needs no atonement. Much more, Jesus is “the high priest of the good things that have come” who goes “through the greater and more perfect tent [that was] not made with hands, not of this creation” (Heb. 9:11). Unlike Aaron, Jesus does not push through the curtain in a temple in Jerusalem—he tears that curtain and temple down. Jesus ascends through the firmament itself into the heavenly temple. He crosses this final and ultimate barrier, not by the “blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). But Jesus does not cross this barrier alone—he removes it altogether, taking all of us with him.

Because of Christ’s death and resurrection we have all entered in to a new heavens and earth, where no barrier remains. Indeed, we have become his body—united to him more fully than we could ever imagine. Because Christ walked from the tomb that Easter day, we can now know with confidence “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38-39).