Why is “Holy Week” so “holy?” It’s the single most important week of human history. The events unfold in the context of God’s salvation plan foretold in the Garden account of Genesis. From the moment sin entered human experience, God was at work to redeem a fallen creation, fallen humanity, and fallen history. His plan was to do something that brought all of His justice and all of His mercy into confrontation and fulfillment. The cross of Christ was the meeting point and all of our sin was heaped on Jesus. Jesus knew it was coming, embraced it, and walked steadily toward it. But He also knew the resurrection was coming. The resurrection was the defeat of death and the proof of His identity and authority to forgive sin and cleanse us once and for all.

So, this week, beginning with Palm Sunday and ending with Resurrection Sunday, is the fulcrum at the center of all human history, all salvation history. It never ceases to astound me that Jesus’s followers in Iran and Israel will devote time to remember Jesus’s actions during that holy week. Followers in Chicago and China will repeat the same scriptures. Jesus’s followers in Jacksonville and Japan will take bread and wine and utter the same words in their own languages: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

And Swahili, Spanish, Swedish, Slovak, and Sundanese words will utter the most earth-shattering news of history: “He is RISEN!” This is the holiest week of history and the greatest news we will ever experience. It’s worth remembering, celebrating, and recalibrating our lives around the Jesus who is the focus of all of it.

So, how will you make this particular week a holy experience for yourself and the people you love most?