This year preparing for Easter has been quite different for me. It is the first year in about 25 that I have not been either a lay leader or a pastor in a congregation. It is the first year that the emotional, physical and spiritual health of my family and friends appear to be in a relatively good place (praise the Lord.) All of this is to say there is more room in my head to attend the spiritual nature of Holy Week.
Several years back I preached into a living portrait of DaVinci’s Last Supper. It became the basis for creating a Holy Week experience, connecting Palm Sunday to Easter. As part of the creative process we were to name the event so people would feel welcomed. Like always I got on my mat and tasked the Spirit to help me create a tagline for advertising the Holy Week experience that would be memorable and not cheesy. What came to me and what sticks with me today as a way to think about Holy Week is, “Enter the story, experience the passion.”
The story of Holy Week is beautiful and painful.The story is an indictment of the worst of humanity and the beautiful loving response of God. As the many actors that participated in the drama of Holy Week moved through the week, you could see the full range of our human emotions. Palm Sunday with all the joy, singing hosannas, color, lights, action. People shouting our King has come to get us out of this mess! Then we witnessed the days of chaos and political maneuvering that followed Jesus entry into Jerusalem, instilling fear and hostility in the people. Jesus response to all of it was to be compassionate and loving. Jesus gathered people, all different people, around a table, washed their feet and served a meal, even to a traitor. A traitor, a denier, a trial, conviction and sentence, all part of the story. The picture of pain and sadness in Jesus’ mom Mary and Mary Magdalen walking with Jesus to the cross. This too is part of the story we are invited into each Easter.
As a post resurrection Christian I truly believe, Jesus could have taken a different path any time that he wanted to but it would not have been the path of love, the mission he embraced. Jesus path was to let love win, for the sake of all people. As the story goes, had Jesus chose a different path it would not have allowed God to show that nothing can separate us from the love of God not even an inhumane death.
There are so many place we can take our place in this story. Where do we delight in the story, where do we struggle? Dinner party, washing feet, or at the foot of the cross. Where do we experience a kind of love story that we can understand and articulate? Who then could we share the story with, someone who would benefit from hearing that God loves us no matter what. How do we get to the pure joy of Easter morning?
One of my favorite poses toward the end of my yoga class is when people are curled up in fetal pose, integrating the death of the practice we just experienced, with new birth to life ahead. We pause to not only nurture the love of God and the light of Christ that is within each of us but then share that love and that light all those gathered with us and those we remember in the silence of our hearts. Then, by the power and in the breath of the Holy Spirit, that love comes back to us, we are one in Christ. Every time we close class this way we experience a little Good Friday death and Easter resurrection to new life, we experience the passion of Jesus.
As we enter the story of Holy Week this year I invited you to commit to practice each day of Holy Week, maybe just 10-15 minutes. I invite you to pause in your breath, meditate on the different people and parts of the story. I pray that we may all experience the passion of Jesus and then share the love of God in Christ Jesus on Easter morn.
