On Palm Sunday, we told the story of how people greeted Jesus and his friends as they came into the city of Jerusalem–waving palm branches and shouting their welcome to him. Jesus was so popular with the people that the leaders of the city, particularly the priests, were afraid that the people would try to put Jesus in charge and make him king of the Jews. The priests tried to prove that Jesus was breaking the laws, so that they could arrest him.

The celebration of Passover began on Thursday night. After Jesus and his friends ate their Passover meal, they went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. After awhile, the priests’ guards came, arrested him, and took him away.

On Friday morning, the priests turned Jesus over to the Roman governor, Pilate, saying that Jesus was trying to be named king of the Jews. The priests knew the Roman rulers would not like this, for they had appointed the king. Pilate knew the priests were jealous of Jesus, so he offered to let him go. But the crowd of people,whom the priests had incited against Jesus, was shouting for Jesus to be crucified. To crucify him meant to hang him on a cross until he died. Pilate had Jesus whipped and then handed him over to the soldiers to be crucified.

The soldiers put a crown of thorns on Jesus’ head, made fun of him, gave him his cross, and sent him up a hill to be crucified. The crowd circled around him. By nine o’clock in the morning they had put him on the cross and by three o’clock in the afternoon he died.

A friend took Jesus’ body and placed it in a tomb which was a little cave and a heavy stone was rolled across the entrance. On the third day after he died, two women came to the tomb and were surprised to find his body was gone.

Some of Jesus’ friends said Jesus came to them after he died—that they saw and talked with him. Others said this couldn’t be so.