We’ll be sharing a series of videos from Bishop Andrew Asbil throughout Holy Week. You’ll be able to find the videos and transcripts below.
Palm Sunday
It’s Sunday. After three years of preaching and teaching and walking the roads of Judea and Galilee, showing people a different way to live and love, Jesus prepares to enter Jerusalem at the start of a week that will change the world.
The crowds are ecstatic. People stop what they’re doing to watch this prophet from Nazareth entering Jerusalem on a donkey. They throw down their cloaks on the road, they wave palm branches and shout Hosanna – a cry for salvation, a plea for deliverance. But do they understand what kind of king he really is? Do we?
We are called to stop what we’re doing and join in the shouts, too – to mark Jesus’ footsteps in this week of weeks, as he moves toward the depths of sorrow and an even greater triumph. We join with Christians the world over to focus the mind and the heart and the soul on who we follow and how we bear witness to that different way to live and love.
This is the week that turns the world. This is the week that shows us what love and service look like. This is the week that turns power on its head, that shakes the earth and unseats the forces of oppression and cruelty.
Without this week nothing changes. So get ready. Strap in. A week from now, everything will be different.
Tuesday in Holy Week
It’s Tuesday. Jesus stands at the threshold of his final days. In Jerusalem, he teaches, cleanses the temple and rebukes those in power – while the cross looms ever nearer.
And all the while, the wheels of betrayal and violence are already in motion. Behind closed doors, threats are whispered, bargains struck. The ones who fear him most are working to rid themselves of this threat. But we’re not quite there yet.
Today, we stand in the shadow of that story. For clergy and lay leaders in our diocese, this day holds special weight. Many of us will gather at the Chrism Mass to renew the vows we made at ordination and the promises made at baptism – to serve, to lead, to follow the way of Christ.
Anointing is not just a blessing; it’s a charge to walk this road with purpose. Jesus is anointed before his burial, and we are anointed for the work ahead, too. The oils blessed today remind us of our calling: to heal, to serve, to proclaim good news in a world that resists it. We are not mere spectators of Christ’s journey – we are participants in his mission.
This week will ask much of us – watching, waiting, walking with Christ to the cross. But we are not sent alone. We walk together, equipped, anointed and strengthened by the Spirit for the road ahead.
The question is not whether we are called—the question is whether we are ready.
Maundy Thursday
It’s Thursday. The disciples gather with Jesus in an upper room to break bread and share wine. But before they can begin, Jesus takes up a towel, kneels at their feet, and washes away the dust of the road. The teacher becomes the servant. The master bends low. And his command, to them and to us, is unmistakable: If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
Even stranger are Jesus’ words during the meal. “This is my body,” he says. “This is my blood. Remember me.” In this meal, Jesus offers not just bread and wine, but his very self. A life poured out. A sacrifice of love. A meal that will sustain his followers long after the world turns against him.
This is the power we are called to. This is the love Jesus models and demands of us. Not arrogance, but humility. Not tyranny, but service. Not selfishness, but sacrifice. “I have set you an example,” he says, “that you also should do as I have done to you.”
At this table, we learn what true power looks like – power given, not grasped. And above all else, love. Love that kneels. Love that serves. Love that holds nothing back.
This is the way of Christ. This is the road we are called to walk together. Step by step, from this table to the cross, we follow him.
Good Friday
It’s Friday. The sky turns dark, the earth weeps, and we weep too, for our saviour is nailed to a cross.
Those who uphold the machinery of injustice have found it all too easy to dispose of a threat. A man who healed the sick, fed the hungry and lifted the lowly – crushed by those who fear losing control. They think they know how this story ends. They don’t.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus takes on the weight of the world’s sin and suffering. Every pain, every cry, borne by the one who knows them all. We see God in a broken man dying a criminal’s death. Our human frailty is laid bare.
Jesus dies. And in that moment, something shatters. The earth shakes, the rocks are split, the temple veil is torn in two. The foundations of power fracture under the weight of this death.
This day reveals a power the world does not recognize – a power in vulnerability, in sacrifice, in love. Jesus redefines what strength looks like. He does not grasp for power; he gives it away. He enters into weakness. He surrenders even to death. And in doing so, he overturns everything we think we know about greatness.
It’s Friday, and our job today is not to look away from the pain, but to sit in it a while. To feel the weight of the cross. To reckon with the truth that the way of the world is not God’s way.
But the story isn’t over. Stay tuned.
Saturday
It’s Saturday. The tomb is sealed. The world waits. God seems silent.
Jesus’ followers scatter and lock themselves away, hiding. The movement is over. It feels like their hope is buried along with their master. The waiting is heavy—what happens when hope feels lost? The temptation is to give up, to believe the story is over.
But it’s not.
This is the long pause before resurrection. The world waits, but God is not done yet. Even in the darkest silence, something is stirring.
“He descended to the dead,” the Apostles’ Creed tells us. Jesus is at work – breaking the chains of death, setting captives free. An unseen battle, a victory unfolding in the depths.
In our day, too, the Church holds its breath. There is much cause for despair. The weight of grief, injustice and suffering presses heavy. Wars rage, the vulnerable are cast aside, and hope can seem like a fragile thing, easily crushed. It is easy to wonder if the darkness is winning – if it has already won.
But we know what’s coming. Because this is the night.
This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave.
And yet, for now, the world still waits. The tomb is still closed. The day is not over. And so we wait, we watch. And we hope.
Easter Sunday
It’s Sunday. Dawn breaks, and in a quiet garden the early morning light falls on an incomprehensible sight: an empty tomb. The stone has been rolled away. He is not here.
Grieving women are the first to receive the news: He is risen. Breathless and trembling, they run to tell the others the greatest news the world has ever known.
The world’s greatest certainty—death itself—has been undone.
No one saw this coming. The religious leaders, the political powers, even Jesus’ own disciples thought death had the final word.
What was meant to silence Jesus has instead shattered the power of death itself. What was once thought to be unshakable—empires, systems of control—is undone in an instant.
The resurrection isn’t just good news—it’s a revolution, the breaking open of a new world. This is new life, something never seen before.
Resurrection isn’t just something we believe in – it’s something we’re called to live in our own lives. To stand and proclaim hope where the world expects defeat. To hold fast to courage in the face of fear. To refuse to let injustice, cruelty and despair have the last word.
This is the dawn of a new way of being in the world.
The tomb is empty. Alleluia!
