A week like no other
The week beginning with Palm Sunday and culminating in Easter Sunday, also known as Resurrections Sunday, is truly a week like no other.
It is, for Christians, the holiest week of our year. Viewing the scripture readings for this week, we remember that God’s word is a living word and it moves the hearts and minds of all who open themselves up to it. Its truth, power and meaning are a life-giving inspiration.
This can be a difficult week as well.
Most of us would prefer to simply jump ahead to Easter, skip all the stuff that is painful for us to hear or imagine or think about.
Most of us only want to experience the gratifying end of the story not to live through the heartache and disappointment within the story itself.
The pattern of this week — also called the Paschal Mystery — is actually the story of each of our lives: informing and shaping and transforming all that we do and all who we are.
Yet because of what we believe in faith, because of the hope we place in our God and in his promises, we wish that we could just flip to the end to the good stuff.
But this week shows us otherwise. It shows that loving costs something. It shows us that doing right by others costs something and that following God’s will costs something.
Yet the cost of living a faithfilled life and the cost of loving is infinitely offset by the incredible power unleashed on the world whenever we seek to love as Jesus loved and as He loves.
Jesus did nothing but love and he saved the world.
What if we tried to do the same, tried to love every person and in every situation?
That’s what it means to walk up that lonely hill with him. We should not walk begrudgingly but willingly, not fearfully but trusting in God’s promises. We need to not be bitter and full of hate but bursting with the love of God dwelling in each of us — bursting with compassion and mercy and forgiveness and generosity and every good thing our loving God showers upon us.
Living a faith-filled life is really hard.
This week shows us that in a very concrete way. But it also shows the life-changing and world-changing power of loving as God loves. May each of us approach not only this week but also approach every cross that comes our way in this life with the kind of love perfectly shown through Jesus’ saving act. That’s what faith looks like.
Put simply our individual struggles, heartaches, tragedies, sin and even death itself are ultimately powerless in the face of great love.
God wins, goodness wins and love wins — every time.
As we journey with Jesus this week, as we contemplate these mysteries with grateful hearts, may we come to recognize just how badly God wants each of us to follow the example of Jesus, trusting that when we love without reservation or condition, incredible things can and will happen for us, for others, and for the world.
Each of us need to use this week wisely. We need to use this week to interweave each of our individual stories with the Greatest Story Ever Told.
They should fit together perfectly. After all, that’s the pattern of every human life — a pattern, a mystery, a profound truth we encounter, and embrace, and stand in awe of this special week.
May you have a Blessed Holy Week!