Were The Events Of Holy Week - A Sherlock Holmes Style Mystery

Spy Wednesday

The Student Cross Leicester Leg 2022 (from Leicester to Walsingham)

Today we find ourselves in Holy Week and today is the day we know as Spy Wednesday

It is the day we focus of the betrayal of Jesus by his friend Judas Iscariot

It is the day just before Maundy Thursday when we remember the Last Supper.

And I wonder what you think

“Was Holy Week a series of unfortunate chance events ”

No, I would like to suggest to you that the events from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday were well planned by Jesus.

1. The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday)

I don’t believe that the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem simply HAPPENED.

I think it was well planned. Why?

Well, it is a small detail about the donkey.

In Luke 19 we read that Jesus told his disciples to go into the next village, Bethphage and find a small donkey that was tied up – and that they brought it back to Jesus.

We read in Lk 19:33

33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

Note: The donkey had owners (plural), and so the owners had to be too poor to afford a donkey alone.

And given that they were poor, the donkey would have had to be a sizeable investment for each owner.

So have you ever wondered WHY the owners would have parted with the donkey to complete strangers - the disciples?

Unless Jesus had prearranged it

And why did Jesus not simply say to his disciples.

“I have arranged a donkey with say “Simeon and his partner Ruben. Please go and get it”

And there has to be a clue to the donkey being pre-arranged in what the disciples are told to the owners of the donkey:

They are told to say “The Lord needs it."

Not “Jesus the teacher from Nazareth needs it” but “the Lord needs it.”

If “The Lord needs it” was not a prearranged signal the owners could easily have answered – Who is “the Lord” but there is no record of them doing so.

Rather the disciples are allowed to take the donkey.

Following the maxim attributed to Sherlock Holmes

"eliminate the obvious and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer."

(The Supreme Court and Constitutional Theory by Ronald Kahn. 1994.)

It seems to me that the most likely explanation has to be that “ The Lord needs it” was a pre-arranged code word for Palm Sunday.

Why – because Judas was still with them.

Had Judas betrayed

i) Jesus’ intention to go into Jerusalem riding a donkey, and

ii) if had also known that he was prepared to get a

then Judas could have told the High Priest and his party what was up to

And they would have immediately realised what that Jesus was planning – that is to say that Jesus was planning to fulfil the Messianic prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 given 900 years earlier.

Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey— riding on a donkey’s colt.

And once they had found out who owned the donkey and where it would be then the High Priestly party would have stopped Jesus ever getting to the donkey

i) either by confiscating it or

ii) simply killing it.

2. The Last Supper

Now we see the same meticulous planning on Spy Wednesday in preparation for the Last Supper

Again remember Judas Iscariot who was to betray Jesus was still with them .

Luke records Jesus sending Peter and John to make preparations for the Passover and he says this :

8.. “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”

9 “Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.

10 He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you.

Follow him to the house that he enters, 11 and say to the owner of the house,

‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’

12 He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”

13 They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. (Luke 22:8-13)

Again Jesus does not tell Peter and John: “Go to Mary the mother of St Mark’s house and prepare the Passover there”, because Judas was still among the disciples.

I think Jesus knew that Judas Iscariot would betray him at the Last Supper too, if he had known where it was being held

Once Judas knew ahead of time where the Last Supper was being held, he could have gone to the High Priest and told them where Jesus was.