Holy Week Post

 Friends, 

 

What a powerful week we are in. It began with the joyous sounds of “Hosanna!” as we joined those powerful voices, welcoming the Christ with seditious protest language, crying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” That raucous event gave way to a much quieter and somber supper on Thursday, as Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and give them a new command (“Maundy” is the Latin word for “mandate”) to love one another. It was there that Jesus disclosed that one of them would betray him and that Simon Peter would deny him thrice. But it was also a time of promise – a promise that Jesus would not leave them orphaned, but that the Spirit would come and enable them to remember Christ’s teaching and would bring them peace. Now, today, Friday, is the day of the week when the deeds are done – Judas has betrayed, the disciples have abandoned, Peter has denied, justice has been politicized between Herod and Pilate, soldiers have killed, friends have cried, the temple’s curtain has been torn, and the sky has gone black. It is as if every facet of human contrivance has failed and now the world itself has gone into mourning. 

 

The powerful spiritual asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” We can easily answer, “No, that was over 2,000 years ago!” But we can more truthfully answer, “We are there every time justice is denied, or violence is held up as the answer, or innocents die, or we justify killing enemies. This story is not just a story from history. It is an exemplary story about the depths of human tragedy, with all of us in starring roles. 

 

It is against this tragic backdrop that we celebrate Easter. We know that resurrection happens in the story – we did this last year and all the years before that. Knowing that resurrection follows death can have to different effects. It can be our reason for denying the reality and true pain of death, to treat the drama of Holy Week as nothing more than a pretense because we’ve read the next chapter already. Or, resurrection can be the gift that enables us to face Holy Week full on, reckoning with what it reveals about our human condition and our inability to fix it. It may sound morose to say, “Yes, I was there when they crucified our Lord,” but we have the courage to say that when we know that our problematic human is not the last word. 

 

So, friends, I invite you to spend this day in reflection. Be bold about the corrupt systems on which we rely, the zero-sum ways that what benefits us often hurts others, the tragic nature of how sometimes even our best efforts merely substitute one kind of problem for another. That’s what Friday is all about. And then, on Saturday and Sunday, we’ll get together and raise our voices in praise that sin and death do not have the last word. 

 

See you on the other side of Friday, 

Mark of St. Mark