Holy Week Reflections

The week that leads up to Easter is referred to as Holy Week.

In the Christian Calendar, Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus coming into Jerusalem to the accolades of the people. To the man Jesus, who traveled as a master teacher, a rabbi, teaching about God’s love for us, it must have been a time of celebration. Finally, the people were listening to him.

At last, they understood what he had been traveling around teaching and preaching. His message about God being more than a stern taskmaster to be appeased through adherence to the law and animal sacrifices, but rather a loving Father who was available for a deeply personal one-on-one (I-Thou) relationship with the people, His beloved children.

Imagine the relief and the joy of finally having His message be heard. Having worked so hard, traveling and teaching every place where people would gather to listen to him preach about God. They must be listening and learning he would have concluded, for as he entered into Jerusalem, they ran forward cheering him, throwing palm fronds in his pathway. So his feet were protected from the dirt and dust of the road.

Not only were they finally listening to his message, but they were also finally acknowledging him as the teacher and leader he was. After sacrificing so much of his personal needs and desires to travel from place to place to bring this message to humankind; often without even shelter from the elements, people were paying attention. He was achieving success. The part of Jesus that the theologians tell us was fully human must have felt all of our emotions of relief and pride and satisfaction that this work he had undertaken for the Lord was finally reaching the people. He must have had joy in his heart as he considered how this change in understanding their relationship with God would comfort the people and give them new hope and new promise in their lives.

This event, this celebrated entry to Jerusalem was after all the culmination of high risk. He had stood before the religious leaders of his time and defied the conventional thinking of his day, chastising the Pharisees for their pompous ways, even criticizing how they prayed and condemned their use of commerce in the house of God.

He knew he had made many enemies. The religious leaders criticized him. They considered him an upstart. They asked who he thought he was to take on the mantle of teaching the people about God. He was after all just a carpenter’s son from an outlying province of Galilee.

So we can certainly understand the relief and validation Jesus must have felt on Palm Sunday as he heard the people greet him with Hosannas. At that moment all of the work was worth it. People were getting the message. Lives would change, minds would change, and the most important relationship people had in their life, their relationship to God would change. The relief Jesus must have felt, the joy Jesus must have felt on that Sunday before Easter, the initiation of Holy Week is to those of us who know the story of what follows, bittersweet.

For we are aware, the story did not end there. And the real work of Jesus’ teaching was lying just ahead, out of sight, not yet fully revealed to him until the important events and revelations that were to follow in the span of time we have come to know as Holy Week.

I would like to think that Jesus was able to rest, relax and bask in those feelings of success and achievement that following Monday and Tuesday. Certainly by Wednesday when he instructed his disciples to prepare the Upper Room for the Passover dinner on Thursday he had begun to realize that more would be required of him. Much more would be needed than he could have imagined; much more than we could ever imagine having to give.

And I am sure that as it was being revealed to Jesus, the mystical understanding of the sacrifice he was being asked to make was not clear. Of course, he knew he had made many of the traditional religious leaders of his time angry at him. He condemned their lifestyle and accused them of misleading people about the relationship to God. But this intuition, this impression he was now receiving in his prayers and meditation that they would put him to death, seemed unfathomable.

As he pondered on this and prayed on this and wondered on this, the man Jesus did not understand all of the revelation, all of the choices of the coming week. All that would be required from him as he faced the ultimate tests of surrender and obedience was still to be revealed. The purpose of this sacrifice, the deep magic as C.S. Lewis called it, the transformation and gift to the world that would result from the events of the next few days, was not yet revealed.

As the hurt and betrayal of realizing one of his disciples would turn him into the Pharisees was revealed, Jesus knew deep in his heart, in the core of his being that his relationship with God required of him total obedience. Although he did not yet know what that would mean in the very real terms of life and death, he knew his faith in the Lord was strong, and he made the commitment to be faithful and obedient, no matter what the result. He knew that God was Love. He knew that to the very core of his being. And, whatever Love required of him, he was willing to give.

This brings us to what in my mind is the most important part of the Easter story. The most significant decision in the life and death and ultimately resurrection story of Jesus all happen on this Thursday before the events of Good Friday and before Easter could even be imagined. Here were the events that make the life of Jesus amazing as we ponder on the stories of Holy Week. At this time the events had not yet reached a point of no return. The outcome was not assured. A thousand possibilities could emerge to change things from what seemed to be the consequence of unfolding events.

There are those who believe that Jesus went through this most important night of his spiritual life, acutely aware of what was happening and what would happen from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross and even to the Resurrection of Easter Sunday. But to me, that dilutes the significance of Maundy Thursday and the strength demonstrated on Golgotha and the Cross. It is the humanness of Jesus that makes this story unique. It is the humanness of Jesus that makes a reflection on this Holy Week what gives us as disciples on a spiritual path hope and power. It is the humanness of Jesus that calls us to follow him and try to live up to his example.

As the Passover feast began, on Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday, Jesus knew he had to do some extraordinary things. First, he must confront his betrayer. To have his intuition and spiritual insight reveal to him the betrayer and not speak out seemed wrong. After all this man, this betrayer had followed him, walked with him and worked with him for three long years.

And as Jesus looked out over his beloved friends and followers he must have realized that no matter how much he had hoped the logical consequences of that betrayal might not come to fruition, if the powerful did their worst to him he had to leave those who had followed him so faithfully some remembrance, some ritual to guarantee that all he had taught about God in the three years he wandered were not forever lost. If the worst result were to occur, the act of betrayal by one of his own made possible, He wanted to leave his disciples one last act, a ritual, a symbol to express the message he had taught.

Fortunately, Jesus was a biblical scholar. A Rabbi well versed in tradition and the scriptures. What he understood about this new way of understanding God, this profound astounding Love that God had revealed to him, represented a new kind of relationship with God. A relationship based on Love, a relationship of forgiveness and grace; a new covenant. So what he needed to leave these loyal friends and followers was a ritual to convey a new covenant relationship with God, a relationship much more pervasive and profound than the old covenant of “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” He needed a new covenant that demonstrated Divine Love; that showed love in a tangible, visceral manner. And since, if the consequences of this night were what he feared, he would show his love for God and his love for all his fellow man by making the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice of his life. It is said greater love has no man than this that he would lay down his life for others.

Since this ultimate sacrifice was certainly possible with the way events were conspiring, he would use the willingness to sacrifice his life, his body and his blood as the symbols of this new covenant, this ritual of remembrance.

As the time of his betrayal approached; since Jesus could well foresee the possible consequence of the traditional religious leaders getting him in their hands, he felt the need for prayer. He wanted to be surrounded by his loyal followers who loved him before he surrendered himself to his enemies. So he went with them to Gethsemane. He asked that they wait with him and pray with him. The hour was late. It was dark, and he needed the comfort of the love of his friends as he turned in complete obedience and surrender to the God he knew so well and loved so fully in prayer. And considering the devastating consequences of the events that seemed to be conspiring against him, he petitioned God that what he was seeing, as not only the possible but also the probable result of this night, could pass him by.

Imagine the hurt and betrayal he felt as he rose from prayer to find his followers sleeping. Here at the most painful and dangerous point of his life and his mission, they could not stay awake with him and pray with him. As he returned to prayer he made his ultimate decision, his final choice to demonstrate love. Perhaps he did not fully understand the reason his life must be forfeited to demonstrate this. If this is what was required, he surrendered his will to the will of his Father in full trust and obedience that he would give, whatever was required of him, even his body, even his blood to demonstrate Love.

Having made this decision when his captors came to claim him he went without resistance. The torture and indignations of what is called Good Friday were born with as much dignity as he could garner. Circumstances were no longer in his control. Having made the decision to follow this all through to its conclusion, he took up his Cross and carried it to the Hill of Golgotha. Jesus, being the teacher that he was, could not help but share his perspective of the events on the way to the hill of crucifixion. I am sure he struggled to understand why this sacrifice was necessary. Perhaps God needed to demonstrate a miracle as the scriptures told of miracles with other teachers and prophets who were faithful to God.

He need only suffer what pain this path offered remembering his purpose to demonstrate love. This was certainly a dramatic way to do it. But his faith and trust that it was necessary and important were absolute. He had prayed for this cup to pass by him and here he was, so it must be substantial. He knew God loved him. He knew he loved God. If this was the best way to demonstrate that love, he had faith that whatever the pain and the sorrow of this moment in time, it had a purpose. Although he might not understand it all, he had come here of his own agreement, his own surrender, his own willingness to be a symbolic sacrificial lamb to this new covenant he had come to understand.

Nailed to the Cross, between two thieves, pierced in the side, finally realizing that the miracle he expected would not be a dramatic rescue to demonstrate God’s power. He cried out to God, the first lines of a Psalm, Psalm 22, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” But as he did this he knew the words of the Psalm ended with an assurance of God’s faithfulness.

And then Jesus gave up his life.

We are told that at that moment the veil of the temple was rent. A mystical event had taken place that opened the separation between God and Man. Divine Love, the Love of the sacrifice that Jesus chose to make was anchored on the earth. The full meaning of what happened on that day in symbolic and mystical import may not be understood by our conscious mind. We know it was something special. We are aware it changed the way man reaches out to God and the way God reaches out to man.

The miracle that Jesus counted upon to save him on the Cross, the true miracle and meaning of the story of Easter occurred after the events of Holy Week in the astounding, unprecedented occurrence of the Resurrection. Jesus could not have predicted this for this miracle was outside of the understanding of mortal man. It was, however, a miracle that demonstrated something so filled with love and embedded with a grace that it had changed life as it was known 2000 years ago into something that could not be imagined when Jesus placed the Cross he had been forced to carry to the hill of his death.

The life of Jesus, the choices and decisions he made empower us as humankind even if we do not understand them; it shows us the potential and the power that we can possess as human beings.”
        – Genevieve Gerard

This lesson, this victory over death itself may be beyond the comprehension of man. It remains today a promise of hope, a promise of eternal life, a miracle of love and sacrifice that impacts the world and continues to affect the world today. And no matter what else humanity may learn in his quest for God. No matter what is demonstrated on the spiritual path. This demonstration of love, given by Jesus will remain unparalleled, unique and worthy of the honor and the glory. That a man can choose to sacrifice his whole being to bring love to the world continues to astound us today and will amaze us in the ages ahead.

Namaste,

Genevieve Gerard

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Last updated 3-25-2018

 

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