Introduction: The world system scoffs, of course, but the tomb of Jesus Christ is still empty. No one has produced his body. And no one will. He will come again, just as he said. Holy Week is upon us. This is the week when Christians remember the passion/suffering of the Christ. On Monday, Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem, Israel, where he would go to the cross on Friday. But everything about the week unfurled in precise detailed fulfillment of prophecies. Even as the world system scoffs, it is nonetheless helpful for believers to know what happened. Why? It bolsters our faith that the events yet to be completed will also unfold just as written.

Matthew’s Record of this Monday in History: “In the morning, as he [Christ] was returning to the city, he became hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once” (Matthew 18:18-19, ESV). This event symbolized God’s judgment upon Israel’s lack of faith and hypocritical religiosity. Where there should have been spiritual fruit, there was corruption. Where there should have been evidence of true conversion to the truth of God in Christ, there was lip service.

Then Jesus entered the temple in Jerusalem. And it wasn’t Jesus “meek and mild” or “gentle and lowly.” Instead, the Jesus of history flipped tables and made of whip of cords. He drove the hypocrites from the temple. He poured out the coins of the moneychangers in the temple (Mt 21:12:22; Mk 11:15-19; Lk 19:45-48; Jn 2:13-17). The world system hated him for it. Why? Because he testified that their deeds were evil. So, they resolved to get rid of him.

That’s just part of Monday in Jesus’s final week, Holy Week, as he entered the city where he’d give himself as a ransom for many on Friday. But much was still to come during that week of suffering. More to follow tomorrow.

Takeaway: Most folks will simply enjoy a day off from work and never connect the dots to the person and work of Christ in history in Jerusalem, Israel on Golgotha’s hill 2,000+ years ago. But the events of that week undergird the history of the world, and one day, each and every knee will recognize it in all its power, grace, judgment, and glory.