Approaching Holy Week

01 Apr Approaching Holy Week

Holy Week looms on the horizon. Palm/Passion Sunday is April 10. Our Holy Week worship schedule will include a Maundy Thursday service at 7:30 PM, a Good Friday service at Noon, and one Easter service at 9:45 AM. There will be in-person and virtual options for all services except for Maundy Thursday, which will be held in Wilson Hall. It is a brief and powerful service which ends in darkness and silence.

Holy Week is so powerful and potentially transformative, because it shakes us out of our mental constructs for how life should be. Fairy tales speak of “happily-ever-after” and our modern, secular, consumerist culture tells us that we can have whatever we want. Holy Week shows up in the midst of these dreams and tells us that God came to be among us and we put God to death. How’s that for a wake-up call?

During Holy Week, the humanity of God shows up on full display. We see Jesus’ vulnerability and his incredible faithfulness. He longs for intimacy with his disciples at the Last Supper. He pleads with God for escape from what is coming and yet consents to God’s unfathomable will. He cries out on the cross and experiences God’s absence. And he dies. Only the most hardened among us are not deeply moved by this story.

In some way this powerful story is also our story. We think that life is supposed to be smooth sailing and all light. Inevitably darkness and sorrow show up and we are undone. It helps to know that we are not alone, even if we feel that we are. It helps to know that God knows what we are experiencing and has gone before us to help us make the journey. It helps to know that suffering and death are not how the story ends, that there is a life that never dies. The calling is to take the journey with Jesus. As Paul wrote in Romans, if we die with Christ, we will also be raised with Christ. This is not so much a theological proposition, as it is an invitation to “taste and see that the Lord is good!”

We are right to call this week, Holy Week. It offers a portal for our own transformation as we give ourselves to its wisdom and surrender ourselves to the same path that Jesus took. May it indeed be so for us all. See you in church