What’s the point of all this? Of shouting “Hosanna” and then “Crucify Him!?”
What is the point of Holy Week?
What’s the point of opening our hearts to all the sadness?
What’s the point of highlighting the betrayers, the deniers, the hiders, the liars and the terrified?
What’s the point of lamenting the loss, the emptiness, the death of Love?
What’s the point of descending into the depths of the grave, of nothingness, of despair?
What is the point of going through it? It’s violent, it’s scary and it’s depressing…
Just like the 6 o’ clock news.
The Rev. Rhonda Waters wrote a terrific article I shared on Facebook a week or so ago…and while her article focused on why she and her husband bring their children into the fullness of all that Holy Week is, I think her words apply to all of us:
The world is not a safe place. God knew that before the Word was made flesh. Jesus knew that before his flesh was subjected to violence and death. The world is not a safe place, but the Word was still made flesh and Jesus still taught the radical good news of God’s Kingdom because the world is not a hopeless place. In fact, the world is a deeply loved and loveable place, and Holy Week invites us to confront the depth of both of these truths.
As Christians, we need to experience Holy Week in its fullness… By participating in these days we learn that popularity is not all it seems, that service is a sign of strength, that empire will go to horrifying lengths to preserve itself, that innocent people are sometimes punished, and that good people sometimes suffer. We also learn that God loves the world anyway and that God’s love is always stronger than hate and injustice.
God’s love is ALWAYS stronger than anything THIS world can throw at us.
This is the journey of Holy Week, in which we emerge beyond the guilt and fear and pain in order to proclaim the victory of love, revealed on Easter but too often hidden from view in our daily lives.
The world is not a safe place, but it is a powerfully loved place. The liturgies of Holy Week give us a chance to not only hear but to experience both of these truths so that we can live wisely, compassionately, and without fear.
I find Rhonda’s words eloquent and wise and I commend them to you.
So, as I did on Ash Wednesday when on behalf of the church I invited you to the observance of a Holy Lent, today I invite to the observance of a Holy Week.
I invite you to walk with us as we enter the pain and emerge in the glory.
I invite you, not because I think suffering is noble, or because I think you don’t deserve your Easter chocolate without some Holy Week pain. No I invite you because Holy Week exposes us for who we are--- fallible, broken, trying the best we can but often messing it up--- human beings.
Holy Week, in a very concentrated way, outlines what the human experience is all about:
We try. Really hard.
We have the best of intentions. The Best.
But we aren’t always that great at following through.
The fact is, we blow it. A lot.
We don’t always respect the dignity of every human being.
We don’t love everyone everywhere, all the time, no exceptions.
We don’t make time for God.
We sometimes forget God all together.
We shy from our faith outside these doors.
We love Jesus, but we really try to avoid talking about him.
We have a tendency to get caught up in the here and now of this world instead of the hope and promise of the next.
We feel terrible about the state of the world but often forget that the only way this world will change is if we set out to change it. One tiny act of hope and light and love at a time.
Holy week teaches us that in spite of our failings, in spite of our misguided choices, in spite of us, God loves us.
Holy Week helps us learn that no matter how awful the pain, no matter how endless the despair, no matter how hopeless things seem, God will not be denied, Hope won’t disappear and Love? Love always wins.
Amen.
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