Abstract: Scriptural accounts are rife with information about the import of the first Easter. Understanding the events of the week before the death and resurrection of Christ can help us appreciate the words of the witnesses as well as the importance of these events in our lives.

All Easter celebrations, Orthodox or Western, reach back to the first Easter, beginning that Sunday morning when the Galilean women followers of Jesus went to the tomb and found it emptied of his body but with two angelic messengers present, one of whom announced the resurrection in what, we may presume, were well rehearsed words. That the women were Galileans is settled by the presence of Mary Magdalene and Joanna among them (Luke 8:2–3; 24:10). That Sunday was exactly a week after Jesus had entered Jerusalem after his long climb from Jericho (Mark 11:11). Although the Gospel accounts differ about the order of events, it appears that, once inside the temple, Jesus created havoc (Luke 19:45–46) before retreating back over the Mount of Olives to the safety of Bethany on the mount’s eastern slope.

Jesus and his dozens of followers had arrived almost a week before Passover to purify themselves as required by Jewish law. After immersing themselves in ritual baths and receiving a sprinkling of water mixed with the ashes of a red heifer from a priest as they stepped onto the temple grounds, Jesus and his entourage spent several days together while he taught the throngs of people who had gathered from far and wide. Each night the moon grew fuller and fuller, expanding to a full moon on Passover itself.

As always, the mood in the city was light and happy; Passover was that kind of holiday. But beneath the positive exterior of temple authorities bubbled a boiling brew of anti-Jesus sentiment. From long before the moment that he and his friends streamed through the city [Page 34]gate, these officials sought means to trap him and eliminate him. But how? Even though he was almost within their grasp, crowds of adoring admirers attended his every move. It was impossible to touch him. Then, like a puff of cooling air in their stifling room, Judas appeared. With the chief priests he made a deal to deliver Jesus to them (see Mark 14:10–11). The stage was now set with all its props. What remained was for the main actors to carry out their agreed roles. And indeed they did, with Judas leading a mixed band of soldiers and temple police to Gethsemane, where, since about midnight, Jesus had been suffering terribly, even “unto death,” as Mark wrote (Mark 14:34), and sweating “as it were great drops of blood” that fell onto “the ground,” as Luke reported (Luke 22:44).

Jesus’ suffering is partially captured in his movements in the garden. In Mark’s account, evidently the earliest of the Gospels, we find a series of verbs in the imperfect tense, a Greek tense that, among other things, describes customary and repeated action. For example, “She kept running” or “She was knitting a sweater.” In Mark’s case, the scene that he presents is Jesus going forward, falling onto the ground, and praying; then going forward, falling, and praying; then again going forward, falling, and praying (Mark 14:35). Jesus’ repeated actions remind us of an athlete who, in performing at a level that causes extreme pain, adjusts the body’s position to lessen the pain, even if the adjustment brings only a tiny bit of relief. In Gethsemane, it seems plain that Jesus kept moving and falling to the earth in an effort to find any kind of relief from the pain and anguish that had suddenly engulfed him.

In quick sequence that morning came Jesus’ so-called “mock trial” before Jewish authori...