📖 Luke Unit 5: The King's Sacrifice and Victory
A 6-Week Chronological Study of Luke Chapters 19 through 24
Every unit in Luke has been building toward this one. The parable of the minas ended with a king who goes away and returns to settle accounts. Unit 5 is the account being settled. Jesus enters Jerusalem as a king, takes the cross as a sacrifice, and walks out of the tomb as a victor. These six lessons are the center of the entire Gospel of Luke, and the center of the entire Bible. Everything before this pointed here. Everything after this flows from here. The cross and resurrection are not a subplot. They are the main event.
Teachers who have walked children through the earlier units will find that the payoff here is substantial. The Jesus Connections and Old Testament Connections planted in every prior lesson have been preparing children to see why the cross was necessary, why it was enough, and why the empty tomb changes everything. Do not rush these lessons. Sit with the weight of the crucifixion before you celebrate the resurrection. Children need both. They need to understand that what happened on Friday was real and terrible and costly, so that what happened on Sunday is genuinely astonishing. This unit is the Gospel. Teach it like it is.
The Triumphal Entry and
the Cleansed Temple
Jesus sends two disciples ahead for a colt and rides into Jerusalem while the crowd spreads cloaks on the road and shouts praises. The Pharisees demand He silence the disciples. Jesus says if they were quiet, the stones would cry out. He weeps over the city, then enters the temple and drives out the merchants, declaring it a house of prayer that has become a den of robbers.
Start Here View Lesson 1The Last Supper and
the Garden of Gethsemane
Jesus gathers His disciples for the Passover meal, takes the bread and the cup, and institutes the Lord's Supper. He tells them that the one who betrays Him is at the table. The disciples argue about who is greatest, and Jesus says the greatest is the one who serves. Then He goes to the Mount of Olives, falls to His knees, and prays: Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Not my will, but yours be done.
View Lesson 2The Trial and
Denial of Jesus
Judas leads a crowd to the garden and betrays Jesus with a kiss. Jesus is seized and brought to the high priest's house. Peter follows at a distance and denies knowing Jesus three times. At the third denial the rooster crows, Jesus turns and looks at Peter, and Peter goes out and weeps bitterly. Jesus is mocked, beaten, brought before Pilate, sent to Herod, sent back to Pilate, and finally handed over to be crucified.
View Lesson 3The Crucifixion and
Death of Jesus
Simon of Cyrene carries the cross to the place called The Skull. Jesus is crucified between two criminals. He prays for the forgiveness of those who crucified Him. One criminal mocks Him. The other asks to be remembered when Jesus comes into His kingdom. Jesus tells him: today you will be with me in paradise. Darkness falls over the land for three hours. Jesus cries out and breathes His last. The curtain of the temple is torn in two.
View Lesson 4The Resurrection and
the Empty Tomb
On the first day of the week, before dawn, the women come to the tomb with spices. The stone is rolled away. They go inside and the body of Jesus is not there. Two men in gleaming clothes appear and say: why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen. The women tell the apostles, but the apostles do not believe them. Peter runs to the tomb, sees the burial cloths lying there, and goes away wondering.
View Lesson 5The Road to Emmaus
and Jesus Appears
Two disciples walk to Emmaus, and a stranger joins them on the road. They tell the stranger about Jesus of Nazareth, who they had hoped would redeem Israel. He was crucified. The tomb is empty. The stranger opens the Scriptures and explains everything that was said about the Messiah in Moses and the Prophets. They beg Him to stay and He breaks bread with them. Their eyes are opened and He disappears. They rush back to Jerusalem. Jesus appears to all the disciples, shows them His hands and feet, eats fish, and opens their minds to understand the Scriptures. Then He leads them out to Bethany and ascends into heaven.
View Lesson 6How to Teach The King's Sacrifice and Victory
This unit carries the full weight of the Gospel. Every lesson is historically dense and theologically rich. Here are four principles to keep your teaching grounded and effective across these six weeks.
- The triumphal entry is a claim, not a parade. In Lesson 1, Jesus is not simply being welcomed as a popular teacher. He is riding into Jerusalem on a colt in deliberate fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9. The crowd is shouting words from Psalm 118. Every symbol points to a king arriving to claim his city. Pharisees in the crowd know exactly what is being claimed, which is why they demand Jesus silence the crowd. Let children see that Jesus is making a public, deliberate declaration. He is not trying to hide who He is.
- The Last Supper is a new Passover, not just a meal. In Lesson 2, every element of the Passover meal carries weight. The disciples have celebrated Passover every year of their lives. They know the lamb, the blood, the exodus story. When Jesus takes the bread and says "this is my body" and takes the cup and says "this cup is the new covenant in my blood," He is reframing the entire story. The Exodus from Egypt pointed forward to a greater rescue. Children who have studied the Passover in Exodus will feel the weight of this moment. Connect the dots explicitly.
- Do not rush past Peter's denial. In Lesson 3, the moment when Jesus turns and looks at Peter after the third denial is one of the most devastating and tender details in all of Luke. Peter does not just fail once. He fails three times, after promising he would die with Jesus, and Jesus sees it happen. Do not moralize this into a lesson about lying. Let it be what it is: a disciple who loved Jesus and completely collapsed under pressure. And then point forward to Luke 24 and the restoration that is coming. The denial is not the end of Peter's story. Neither are children's failures the end of theirs.
- The resurrection changes the reading of everything. In Lesson 6, the stranger on the road to Emmaus opens the Scriptures and shows two disciples how Moses and all the Prophets speak about the Messiah. That is a picture of what we do every week in Sunday school. Every Old Testament story, every unit on Genesis and Exodus and Ruth, was always pointing here. When Jesus opens their minds to understand the Scriptures at the end of Luke 24, He is doing exactly what we are trying to do with children. Help them see that the Bible is one story, and the risen Jesus is the key that unlocks all of it.