The most somber and reflective week on the church calendar. Perhaps the only time, during the year, that as believers we actually reflect on the awesome cost of our redemption.

1 Peter 1: 18-19 18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

Surely we should all ask God, especially during this holy week, to take us back to the place where we first believed, to the foot of the cross. To the place where we can identify with his sufferings that we might be partakers of His resurrection. 1Peter 4:13

He was betrayed, humiliated, spat upon, mocked, abandoned, not believed, wept in the Garden in prayer until he sweat blood, denied, lashed until He was almost dead, nailed to a cross He had to carry, forsaken by His Father because He became sin for us, yet while hanging in excruciating pain between heaven and earth, He could cry out “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!”

Isa.53: 2 -10 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.

The level of our meditative reflection during this holy week, will determine and intensify the fullness of our joy come Sunday morning when the stone was rolled away to reveal an empty tomb. Joy unspeakable and full of glory!

He is risen! He is risen indeed!