In this week, Holy Week, we tell the central story of our faith. It is the story of God's deep and abiding love for us and for all creation. It is the story of Jesus' solidarity with us in suffering. It is the story of God's promise to be with us everywhere - when we are in anguish and uncertain, in the midst of our betrayal and denial, in our suffering and death, and even in the depths of hell. It is the story of God's assurance that death never has the last word, and that the power of God can transform even the most hopeless of circumstances into places we see the surprising, grace-filled glory of God.
So much of Holy Week is meant to be embodied, experienced. It is a week for all our senses - the taste of the bread and cup as we remember Jesus' last meal with his friends. The coolness of water and the softness of the towel washing tired feet. The sound of singing together, voices blended into one. The smell of candles and flowers. The interplay of light and dark, fullness and emptiness, sound and silence.
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| Giotto, 1266?-1337. Lamentation, or the Mourning of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=47415 [retrieved April 7, 2020]. Original source: http://www.yorckproject.de. |
For this reason, and many other reasons, this week will be especially difficult this year. How do you even have Holy Week apart from these experiences? Cut off from these familiar motions, I wonder if, this year, we might more fully experience some other parts of the story.
Perhaps Jesus' anguished prayer in the garden - "Father, let this cup pass from me" - will also be on our own lips as we struggle to make it through the fear and anxiety and difficulty that still lies ahead. Or perhaps, like the disciples, we are so exhausted that we just cannot stay awake to keep watch.
Perhaps our own sense of loneliness and isolation will call to mind Jesus on the cross - his friends gone, darkness shadowing the land, a deep feeling of being abandoned and forsaken.
Perhaps Easter will surprise us anew as we hear the good news, hidden at home like the disciples, fearful and uncertain: Christ is risen! Do not be afraid!
We are missing much from our Holy Week and Easter observances this year - no egg hunts, no in-person worship, no Communion, no large family dinner. Missing much, and yet we rejoice that even now God is with us; rejoice that because Jesus lives, we shall live also.
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