Passion Week 2026: Holy Monday
By Elizabeth Prata
Today is Monday, March 30, 2026. It is the Monday after Psalm Sunday. On that Sunday so long ago, Jesus rode a colt of a donkey into Jerusalem and was hailed and blessed and exalted as a coming King. A deliverer. A Savior (of the Israelites).
He was, but not in the way the hallelujah-ing crowds thought. He came to die.
Holy Week is that period between Psalm Sunday and Resurrection Sunday. It is a period rightly somber, and many Christians meditate on the meaning of the different things Jesus did in His last week of life as humble servant, prophet, miracle worker. He walked, sometimes trudged, always clear eyed and willingly, toward that dark death promised Him before the worlds began.
He came to die. It is time to die.
The Gospels were not written chronologically so it is hard to exactly tell what Jesus did during that specific week. Tradition says this is the day He cursed the fig tree for its promise of fruit but failure to produce it. Or perhaps this is the day He cleansed the Temple. We can’t be dogmatic about specifics, but we can rightly ponder the great truths Jesus has taught during his life as Teacher (Rabboni). Who IS this Jesus, this Jesus who is promised to come again. This same Jesus who will come again. (Acts 1:11).
He came to die as propitiation for our sins.
He not only came to die, but He came to shed His blood in the dying. Jesus’s is a story that bears repeating and repeating and it never becomes boring. How could it?! As Spurgeon said in his sermon Christ Set Forth As A Propitiation, Spurgeon, Good Friday Morning, March 29, 1861:
“You will not reply that you have heard this story so often that you have grown weary of it, for well I know that with you, the Person, the Character, and the work of Christ are always fresh themes for wonder! We have seen the sea, some of us, hundreds of times, and what an abiding sameness there is in its deep green surface; but who ever called the sea monotonous? Traveling over it as the mariner does, sometimes by the year together, there is always a freshness in the undulation of the waves, the whiteness of the foam of the breaker, the curl of the crested billow, and the frolicsome pursuit of every wave by its long train of brothers. Which of us has ever complained that the sun gave us but little variety…”
So this is a week when we ponder the old, old story, as we do every week of the year.
Jesus was set forth as a sacrifice. He willingly came to do so. Spurgeon’s text is Romans 3:25-
whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in God’s merciful restraint He let the sins previously committed go unpunished; (Romans 3:25).
Spurgeon: “The words, “set forth,” in the original may signify, “foreordained;” but according to eminent critics, it has also in it the idea of setting forth as well as a “foreordaining.” Barnes says, “The word properly means to place in public view; to exhibit in a conspicuous situation, as goods are exhibited or exposed for sale, or as premiums or rewards of victory were exhibited to public view in the games of the Greeks.” So has God the Father set forth, manifested, made conspicuous the Person of the Lord Jesus as the Propitiation of sin.“
Indeed. As the week progresses to its climax, we understand that Jesus’ suffering and death was made ‘a spectacle’ for all to view.
For now, He saw the crowds praising Him, knowing in a few days they would be cursing Him. Such is the fickle display of sinning hearts, crowds who became a spectacle themselves as spiritually worthless flunkies howling their hosannas which crumbled like dead leaves underfoot days later.
Spurgeon- “We should look to Christ, and look to Christ, alone, as the propitiation for our sins, and take care that our faith is simple, and fixed solely on his precious blood” that shall be shed in a mere few days.
And still Jesus pressed on.
More tomorrow.
God’s Promise concerning His Servant
1″Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.
2″He will not cry out nor raise His voice, Nor make His voice heard in the street.
3″A bent reed He will not break off And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice.
4″He will not be disheartened or crushed Until He has established justice on the earth; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law.”
Isaiah 42:1-4
