A week like no other
As the season of Lent draws to a close, Palm Sunday and Easter are in sight. Thankfully, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is within reach, but the warmth and brightness of this light cannot be fully appreciated unless we are willing to first journey through a week like no other. “A week like no other” is how I characterize Holy Week: the days leading up to Jesus’ arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane after being betrayed by Judas; his crucifixion at the hands of an angry mob stirred into a frenzy by the words of Pontius Pilate; and his burial in a borrowed tomb as his closest followers cowered in dark corners, fearing for their very lives.
For many Christians, avoiding the heartwrenching events of Holy Week is a choice made intentionally each year because for them, it is just too hard, too painful, too sad to think about the One we call “Savior” being flogged and beaten, a crown of thorns being pressed into his forehead, the disciples he counted on denying, betraying and abandoning him, and heartless men pounding nails into his hands and feet before hoisting him up on a cross where he would suffer and die on that Friday afternoon when the sun refused to shine. After having survived this past year — a year many have described as being like no other because of the pandemic we have endured — we can certainly appreciate why some would choose to skip from Palm Sunday to Easter without missing a beat or feeling any sense of guilt.
But here is the thing: when we choose to skip over this week that is like no other, both in the life of Jesus and in our lives as people of faith, we miss experiencing Jesus in all of his humanity, as well as in all of his divinity. We miss the Jesus who responded to the cries of the Palm Sunday crowd — a crowd whose “Hosannas” were quite literally cries for Jesus to save them — by choosing to enter Jerusalem even though he knew the danger of doing so, and by upending the status quo and challenging the powers that be on his way to the cross. We miss the whip-wielding, table-turning Jesus who drove money changers out of the Temple, his rage stoked not so much by the selling of things but by the exploitation of the poorest of the poor, who felt compelled to pay ridiculous prices for the pigeons they believed God required them to sacrifice in order to worship rightly.
We miss the Jesus who shared a final Passover meal with his beloved disciples, tenderly washing their feet and urging them to love one another as he loved them. We miss the Jesus who calmly endured the mocking and cruelty of Roman guards; the Jesus who sweat blood and prayed that God might provide him with a “Plan B” so he would not have to die; the Jesus who, from the cross, asked God to forgive the very ones who were killing him. In short, we miss the Jesus who can help us, the Jesus who clearly demonstrated he knows what it means to be human, the Jesus who really does understand and feel our pain.
This is the Jesus in whom I have placed my faith and trust, the Jesus who can and will journey with us through our darkest days and longest nights. When it comes to dealing with life’s most awful experiences, it will always be true that “the only way through it is through it.” As Holy Week approaches, may we have the courage to journey “through it” with the One who can and will bring us out on the other side so that we might bask in the lifegiving warmth and unmatched beauty of Easter’s light.