This week is Holy Week for Christians around the world, some of the most significant days on our calendar, moving from the celebration of Palm Sunday through the darkness of Good Friday to the joy of Easter morning. I was in church last Sunday as they were reading the passion narrative, the account of Christ’s final hours, when something caught my attention that I had not paid attention to before.
When Jesus cries out from the cross, some of the bystanders think he is calling for Elijah. I had read past this detail countless times. Elijah was a towering figure in Jewish history. But why would a crowd standing near a dying man hear the name Elijah specifically? Why that name and not something else?
