Lesson
The Week of the Cross
The days from Bethany to the empty tomb, told from the four Gospels, with the fight about the year and about Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.
September 25, 2026
Four books tell one week. They do not take the same roll call at every hour. Mark is the most interested in "the next morning." Matthew sometimes folds a morning into the day before. John dates things by the and spends the night of the meal on a long conversation the others do not transcribe. This lesson follows the scenes. It does not preach the speeches.
If you came for the calendar fight, it is real, and it is not hidden at the bottom as a footnote. Two questions sit under it. The year: Luke dates John's preaching to the fifteenth year of Tiberius, and from there AD 30 and AD 33 are the two years most often given. Both are arguments, not something a verse says. The weekday: Friday, Thursday, and Wednesday each have defenders, and each is trying to honor a line like "three days and three nights" or "the day before the Sabbath."
The days below are told in Mark's order where Mark gives a morning and an evening. The other books are set beside that clock, not chopped to fit it. A Friday crucifixion is the reading most churches inherited. It is not the only reading that cites the text. Where a Wednesday or Thursday reading moves a day, the weekday lesson says so.
The road up to this week is The Road Jesus Walked.
Bethany, before the entry
John dates a dinner. Six days before the Passover, Jesus comes to Bethany. They make a supper. Martha serves. Lazarus is at the table. Mary anoints his feet and wipes them with her hair. Judas objects about the poor. Jesus says it is for his burial. A crowd comes because of Lazarus. The chief priests plan to put Lazarus to death too ().
Matthew and Mark tell an anointing at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, and they tell it in the frame of the last days (, ). Many readers think this is the same night, and that Mark put it next to the betrayal because of the theme. Some readers think of two anointings. Luke 7 is a different woman, earlier, in Galilee. Do not merge that one in.
"Six days before" is also why people start the week where they do. The count depends on which day the Passover is. That is the weekday argument, not a reason to drop John's sentence.
The day of the entry
John says the next day the crowd takes palm branches and goes out (). The synoptics start from Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives. Two disciples bring a colt. Matthew says a donkey and a colt (). Mark and Luke say a colt on which no one has sat. Cloaks go on the animal and on the road. Branches. Hosanna. Blessed is the king. Luke: some tell him to rebuke the disciples. He weeps over the city (). Matthew: the city is stirred, and the question is who this is ().
What about the temple that day? Mark says he went in, looked around at everything, and because it was already late went out to Bethany with the twelve (). Matthew tells the driving out of the sellers in the same movement as the entry (). Luke also puts the driving out with the arrival, and then says he was teaching daily (). This lesson follows Mark's two mornings, and it does not accuse Matthew of inventing a day. Matthew often tells the deed with the arrival.
The next morning
He is hungry. He sees a fig tree in leaf. He finds nothing but leaves. Mark says it was not the season for figs. He says, "May no one ever eat of your fruit again" (). They go on into the city.
In the temple he drives out those who sold and those who bought. He overturns the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He would not allow anyone to carry a vessel through. "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of for all the nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" (). The chief priests and the scribes hear it and seek a way to destroy him. They fear him, because the crowd is astonished. Evening, they go out of the city ().
The morning the tree is dead, and the day of questions
The next morning the fig tree is withered from the roots. Peter remembers. Jesus answers them about (). Matthew has the tree wither at once, in the hearing of the disciples ().
In the temple the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders ask by what authority he does these things. He asks them about John's baptism. They will not answer. Then the parables, and the tenants are the one aimed at them. They want to arrest him and they fear the crowd (, ).
Then the questions meant to trap him. Tax to Caesar, from Pharisees and Herodians. The resurrection, from , and a woman with seven husbands. The great commandment, from a scribe. In Mark, Jesus tells that scribe he is not far from the kingdom (). Jesus asks how David calls the Christ Lord. He warns about scribes who devour widows' houses. He watches the treasury. A poor widow puts in two small coins ().
As he leaves, a disciple says, "Teacher, look at the magnificent stones and buildings!" They sit on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple. Peter, James, John, and Andrew ask when, and what the sign will be (). What he says there is a lesson of its own, and this page will not turn it into a chart. The event is that the conversation happened on this day, looking at that building. Watching Wisely is the sitting for how to read it.
Matthew says that when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he told the disciples that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. The chief priests and elders gather in the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas, and plot to arrest him by stealth and kill him. "But not during the feast," they said, "or there may be a riot among the people" ().
Judas goes to the chief priests and agrees on silver. He looks for a moment to betray him (, ). Luke says Satan entered Judas, and that Judas conferred with the captains and sought an opportunity (). The day is before the supper. No hour is given.
The day the Gospels do not assign
If the questions were one day and the meal was prepared the next day but one, there is a day with no scene pinned to it. Some readers put the anointing there. Some put the bargain there. A Wednesday crucifixion and a Thursday crucifixion move this gap, or close it. The empty day is an observation about the Friday calendar. It is not a claim that Jesus did nothing.
The day they prepare the meal
Mark says: on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed, the disciples ask where he wants them to prepare (). Luke says the day of Unleavened Bread came, on which the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed (). He sends Peter and John. A man carrying a jar of water. A large upper room, furnished. They prepare.
That sentence, "when the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed," carries a lot of weight for the calendar. In the ordinary Friday reading, this daytime is when the lambs are killed, and the meal that night is the Passover. John will sound different by morning. Both sentences stay on the table in .
The night of the meal and the arrest
They recline. He says one of them will betray him. They are grieved and ask, one after another, "Surely not I?" () He says it is one who is dipping his hand into the bowl with him. Matthew: Judas asks, "Surely not I, Rabbi?" and Jesus says, "You have said it yourself" (). John: Jesus gives the morsel, and Satan enters Judas, and Jesus says, "What you are about to do, do quickly." The others think it is about the feast or the poor. Judas goes out. And it was night ().
John also tells the washing of feet that night ().
The bread. "This is my body." The cup. Matthew and Mark: "my blood of the ." Luke and Paul: the new covenant in his blood (, , ). Luke's cup, bread, and cup order is one of the small differences in the room. They sing a hymn and go out to the Mount of Olives ().
He says they will all fall away. Peter says he will not. Jesus says that this night, before the rooster crows twice in Mark, Peter will deny him three times. Peter says he will die first. They all say the same (). Matthew has the rooster once. The three denials are in all four.
John records a long conversation and a prayer before they cross the Kidron (, , ). The other Gospels move from the hymn to the mount. This page does not unpack the conversation. It happened on the way to the garden, in John's telling, and the others do not pause to write it.
Gethsemane. He takes Peter, James, and John and begins to be greatly distressed. He asks them to watch. He prays that the hour might pass. "Not what I will, but what you will." He finds them sleeping. In Mark, three times (). Luke says he prayed, and that an angel appeared and strengthened him, and that his sweat became like great drops of blood falling (). Some old copies of Luke do not have the angel and the sweat. The words are in the passage people mean when they talk about the garden. The copies are not unanimous. Luke also says they slept "for sorrow."
Judas comes with a crowd from the chief priests, with swords and clubs, and a kiss as the sign. John does not tell the kiss as the signal. John says Jesus goes out and asks whom they seek. They say Jesus of Nazareth. He says, "I am He," and they draw back and fall to the ground (). One of those with Jesus draws a sword and strikes the servant of the high priest and takes off his ear. John names Peter, and names the servant Malchus (). Luke says Jesus touched the ear and healed him (). Jesus tells Peter, "Put your sword back in its sheath!" (). Then they seize him. Mark alone: a young man in a linen cloth flees naked (). All the disciples flee.
They lead him to the high priest. John says first to Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas, high priest that year, and then Annas sends him bound to Caiaphas (, ). The night hearing: false witnesses. In Mark they do not agree. The temple word is brought up, and even then the witnesses do not agree (). The high priest asks if he is the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. Mark: "I am," said Jesus, "and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven" (). Matthew: "You have said it yourself," and then the same coming (). The high priest tears his robes. Blasphemy. They condemn him as deserving death. They spit, they cover his face, they strike him, they say "Prophesy" ().
Peter is below in the courtyard, warming himself. A servant girl. Then more. Three denials. A rooster. Luke: the Lord turns and looks at Peter (). Peter goes out and weeps.
Morning
When day comes, the assembly of the elders, chief priests, and scribes gathers. Luke puts the formal question in the daylight (). Mark says as soon as it was morning they held a consultation, bound him, and delivered him to Pilate ().
Matthew places Judas's remorse in the morning. He returns the silver. "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." They say, "What is that to us?" He throws the money in the temple and goes and hangs himself. The priests take the money, and because it is blood money they buy the potter's field to bury strangers, which is why it is called the Field of Blood (). Acts says he acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open, and it became known as Akeldama, Field of Blood (). Both reports are in . This lesson will not invent a third story to make them feel neat. His end is also in .
Before Pilate, and Herod
They themselves do not enter the praetorium, so they would not be defiled and could eat the Passover (). That clause is the other half of the calendar fight. Pilate comes out. "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answers Pilate, in John, about a kingdom not of this world, and about truth (). Pilate finds no guilt. The accusations continue. Luke: learning he is a Galilean, Pilate sends him to Herod, who is in Jerusalem in those days. Herod has wanted to see a sign. Jesus answers him nothing. Herod and his soldiers mock him, put a splendid clothing on him, and send him back. That day Herod and Pilate become friends (). The other Gospels do not tell the Herod errand. They are not required to.
The crowd is offered the Passover release. Barabbas is in prison for insurrection and murder. The chief priests stir the crowd. Matthew: Pilate's wife sends a warning from a dream, and Pilate washes his hands, and the people take the blood on themselves (). The others do not tell the dream or the basin. Pilate delivers Jesus to their will.
The soldiers scourge him, twist a crown of thorns, and put a purple cloak on him. Matthew says a scarlet robe. They strike him, spit, and kneel in mock homage (, ). John puts the thorns before the final sentence, and Pilate brings him out: "Here is the man!" () They cry for crucifixion. Pilate says he finds no guilt. They say Jesus has made himself the Son of God. Pilate is more afraid. He asks where Jesus is from and gets no answer. "If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar." He sits on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, in Aramaic Gabbatha. John says it was about the sixth hour, and the day of Preparation of the Passover ().
The hour is an old difficulty beside Mark, who says it was the third hour when they crucified him (). A card in the contradictions list reads both lines as morning, not as lunch, and it assumes Friday: What Hour Was He Crucified? This lesson does not need that card to be the last word on the weekday. It does need you to see that the two hours are both in the text.
The road and
John says Jesus went out bearing his own cross (). The synoptics say they compelled Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus in Mark, to carry it (). The ordinary reading is two stages of one road: he carries it, and then Simon does. Luke says women beat their breasts and lament, and Jesus speaks to them about the days coming on the city ().
The place is called Golgotha, the Place of a Skull (). They offer wine mixed with myrrh. Mark says he did not take it. Matthew says wine mixed with gall, and that he tasted it and would not drink it. They crucify him and divide his garments by lot. The charge: the King of the Jews. John says it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek, and that the chief priests wanted "he said" added, and Pilate refused (). Two criminals, one on each side. Passersby mock. The chief priests mock. The soldiers mock. One criminal rails. The other rebukes him, and Jesus says, "Today you will be with me in paradise" ().
Women look on from a distance. Mark names Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome (). John brings some near the cross: his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, and the disciple whom he loved. "Woman, here is your son." "Here is your mother." From that hour the disciple takes her to his own home (). does not name that disciple in the sentence. has long read him as John.
Darkness from the sixth hour until the ninth, over the whole land (). About the ninth hour Jesus cries, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani," which Mark translates: my God, my God, why have you forsaken me. Some of the bystanders think he is calling Elijah. Someone runs with sour wine. Jesus utters a loud cry and breathes his last (). Luke: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (). John: "It is finished," and he bows his head (). The lessons that explain those sentences are not this one. The hours are.
The curtain of the temple is torn in two from top to bottom. Matthew adds an earthquake, rocks split, and tombs opened, and says that after his resurrection many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep went into the holy city and appeared to many (). The tombs and the appearing are not pinned to the same moment. Read the sentence. The centurion in Mark and Matthew: truly this man was the Son of God. Luke: certainly this man was innocent, or righteous, depending on the English of the word.
John: the others' legs are broken so the bodies will not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the next day was a High Sabbath. Jesus is already dead. A soldier pierces his side. Blood and water. John says this happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: not one of his bones will be broken, and they will look on him whom they have pierced (). "A High Sabbath" is one of the phrases the Thursday and Wednesday readings lean on. It is in the text either way. A high Sabbath can mean the weekly Sabbath that falls inside the feast, or a feast-day Sabbath besides the weekly one. That fork is in the weekday lesson.
Burial, before sundown
Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was looking for the kingdom of God, takes courage and asks Pilate for the body. Pilate is surprised he is already dead and asks the centurion (). John says Joseph was a disciple secretly, for fear of the Jews, and that Nicodemus comes with a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. They bind the body in linen with the spices and lay it in a new tomb in a garden, where no one had yet been laid, close by, because of the Jewish day of Preparation (). A stone is rolled against the entrance. The women see where he is laid. Luke says they return and prepare spices and ointments, and rest on the Sabbath according to the commandment (). Mark says when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices (). Those two spice sentences are the other hinge of the weekday argument. They are not a contradiction this page will flatten.
The next day, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees ask Pilate for a guard, lest the disciples steal the body and say he rose after three days. Pilate tells them to make it as secure as they can. They seal the stone and set the guard ().
The first day
When the Sabbath was past, very early on the first day of the week, they go to the tomb (). The names are not a single line. Mark: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women (). John begins with Mary Magdalene, and then she says "we do not know where they have put Him!" so she is not the only one in the story ().
Matthew: a great earthquake, an angel rolls the stone and sits on it, the guards shake. Mark: the stone is already rolled back, and a young man in a white robe is sitting on the right. Luke: two men in dazzling apparel. John, at this first moment: the stone taken away, no angel yet, and Mary runs to Peter and the other disciple.
Peter and the other disciple run. The other arrives first, sees the linen cloths, and does not go in. Peter goes in and sees the cloths, and the face cloth folded in a place by itself. Then the other disciple goes in and believes. They return to their homes (). Mary stays, weeps, sees two angels, turns, thinks he is the gardener, hears her name, and is told not to cling to him, but to go to his brothers. She goes and says, "I have seen the Lord" ().
Matthew: the women meet Jesus on the way, take hold of his feet, and are told to tell his brothers to go to Galilee (). The guard reports, and money is given to say the disciples stole the body ().
The same day, two on the road to Emmaus, sixty stadia from Jerusalem. He walks with them. They do not know him until the bread. They return and find the eleven and those with them saying, "The Lord has indeed risen and has appeared to Simon!" (). The location of Emmaus is not settled. Sixty stadia is about seven miles. One famous candidate is much farther, which is why some copies of Luke say one hundred sixty. The map leaves the road open on purpose.
That night he stands among them. They are startled. He shows hands and feet, eats broiled fish, and opens the Scriptures (). John says the doors were locked, he says "Peace," shows hands and side, and breathes on them. Thomas is not with them ().
Eight days later Thomas is there. "My Lord and my God" ().
After the morning
The week this lesson promised ends at the resurrection. The books do not end there. Matthew sends them to a mountain in Galilee (). John tells a breakfast by the sea, a catch of fish, and a conversation with Peter about love and about the beloved disciple's death (). Luke 24 can be read as if the ascension were the same day. Acts says he presented himself alive for forty days, and then, on the mount called Olivet, a cloud takes him, and two men in white say he will come in the same way (, ). The forty days are why the end of Luke is usually read as a summary, not as a claim that he left before sundown on the first day.
The year, and the weekday, are the two opens if you have not read them yet.
This lesson's home is The Life of Jesus.