A Holy Week

Holy Week. It's a term that means something special to many Christians, and absolutely nothing to many others. For some it is a week to contemplate the last week of Jesus' earthly life, and to think about what it means to live sacrificially. For others, it is a countdown to Easter Sunday, to the festivities and to the reality of the resurrection. I have said it for years and years: one cannot get to Easter Sunday without going through Good Friday. I have been criticized, with some saying that the resurrection trumps all else, and that the need for Good Friday is now done away with, because it did not have the last word. Attendance at my annual Good Friday prayer service is slim, indeed. We just don't want to take the time, it seems, to be reminded of something that is not pretty. And that is exactly the point: Holy Week is not pretty, and it makes us think about terrible events in the life of the One whom God sent to be with us. Perhaps we think we cannot look upon it because we are unworthy, and it reminds us of the distance there is to go between who we should be as Christians, and who we really are. And that's the crux of Good Friday: we look unfaithfulness and betrayal in the eye, and we gaze upon the horror of the murder of Jesus, the very one who did not deserve to die. We cannot understand, adequately, the transforming power of the resurrection in the life of the followers of Jesus until we look, unflinchingly, at the ways in which that first faith community nearly fell apart. The downward spiral of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday was hastened by the abandonment of Jesus by those closest to him. And once they abandoned him, they could not face him, or those who persecuted him, so they fled, quite simply. And that is where Good Friday leaves us, alone and feeling forsaken, until sunrise on Easter Sunday. But let's not jump to Easter right away. Linger with Jesus, in that desolate place, for just a while, so that you may take in the enormity of what is meant by sacrificial love, and view the lengths to which God was willing to go to demonstrate that love. In that silence and darkness are to be found the seeds that will blossom into a proper celebration of the resurrection. May God be with you this Holy Week.