Examine the Jerusalem path laden with leafy branches and don’t overlook the cloaks strewn all over the place, disheveled like discounted apparel on the clearance rack of a thrift store floor. They’re the last vestiges of abandoned hope that remain after the “hosannas” (“save us”) evaporated into the arid, Roman-occupied air.

Rather than overthrow Caesar, this so-called “king” overturned tables in the temple. Huh? Talk about a campaign killer! Whatever fervent notions the crowd had about “Jesus for President” got trampled along with the cloaks on the ground.

And if that wasn’t enough of a buzzkill, there was the Passover meal on Thursday. When the Teacher took the bread and the cup—the signs of our ancestors’ deliverance from Egypt—he instituted new words and our collective heart rates quickened with the thought that he was about to say, “Eat up! Quick! This is my time! Take the cup! Drink! This is the blood of the old regime that’ll be shed tonight! Let’s rally the troops and take the city.”

But no. Jesus started spouting off this stuff about his body given and his blood being poured out…and then “pow!” That’s when things started to fall apart. He spoke about betrayal. We were grasping at straws while Judas was grabbing his coat. It was chaos.

Soon, the food got left on the table much like the earlier cloaks on the ground and before you knew it, we were in the garden and Jesus’ body trembled in prayer while our heads bobbed in sleep. But the sound of the wind moving through the twisted olive trees was suddenly broken by the sounds of guards who bound Jesus after Judas embraced him. We wanted to follow. We wanted to free him if it wasn’t for…the fear.

And so we left. We couldn’t stand to stay. The ensuing trial…the torture…the cross…if it happened to him, what would happen to us? We didn’t stick around to find out. We left: our cloaks on the ground, the cuisine on the table, and our Christ on a craggy cross.

Holy Week? More like holy hell. At the time, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything holy about it. The ups and downs, the high and lows, the celebrations, the exasperations, the undulations. Nothing in this week is stable. Nothing in this week is solid. Nothing in this week is sure. None but a Savior. What should’ve been hellish is called holy, not because the stuff that happens in it is full of good, but because it’s full of God who ultimately makes it so.

Question: If the Lord could take a week like that and make it holy, imagine what God can do in the day, week, month, or the world of those who trust him enough to stick around till Sunday? See You Then!