REFLECTIONS ON HOLY WEEK

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Recently, I read an article written by our Southern New England Conference Executive Minister for Programs and Initiatives, Rev. Dr. Chris Davies.  Rev. Davies wrote a Holy Week Primer (https://www.sneucc.org/postdetail/holy-week-primer-19658793) for a local newspaper but also sent it out to the entire conference so we could share in learning.  I highly recommend giving her article a spin because it is a quick encapsulation of what we do in Holy Week, what happens on the days we don’t have worship at church, and why we do it all in this special week every year.

Observing Holy Week was an early constant in my faith journey.  I guess this is what happens when you grow up in a family of ministers and seminarians: they were always at church throughout Holy Week, so when I wasn’t young enough to be home on my own yet, I was there, too.

I have memories of attending Maundy Thursday services with my grandparents at their church in San Francisco.  We’d head to the basement that held their Fellowship Hall and kitchen, and we’d sit around tables that were put together in the shape of a cross.  We ate a meal in the darkness of that space, our plates and our faces only lit by the candles scattered around the table.  I came to love these services because it was one of the first experiences on my faith journey in which I wasn’t one of the kids at church.  I got to participate in the worship service and the conversations around the table while people treated me like any other adult present.  Because of these services, the ritual of eating in the dark on Maundy Thursday is an integral part of my faith journey every year.

When I was in seminary, I was serving a church as an intern and participating in Holy Week services as a leader for the first time.  That Maundy Thursday service had a deep impact on me because we had just found out Kelse was pregnant for the first time, news so recent that we still hadn’t started telling anyone yet.  I remember watching the shadows darken around the cross and reflecting on the juxtaposition of Jesus heading toward the end of his life even as new life grew in our own family.  My emotions were a jumble that evening, trying to sort our grief, hope, and love all at the same time.

Seminary also offered my first opportunity to preach on Good Friday.  I was one of many seminarians chosen to preach on one of the Seven Last Words of Christ for our afternoon observance.  I was unprepared for how emotional the experience might be, and how deeply I could feel grief on that day as we recounted the story of Jesus’ death together.  That grief stuck with me until Easter morning brought a new perspective.

It’s because of these experiences that Easter holds such a special place in my heart.  Without the events of Holy Week, it’s easy to jump from the joy of a Palm Sunday procession to the joy of the resurrection on Easter morning.  And lots of joy is a good thing!  But what Holy Week has taught me is that the joy of Easter morning is all the more glorious after walking with grief, despair, and hopelessness throughout the week.   After all, that’s what life is: some times are great and full of joy, some times are terrible and full of despair, and some of our time is spent in between.  These times interact with each other, and the journey from one to another is what fills the stories of our lives.

In that spirit, I encourage you to attend our Holy Week services, and to even bring your families.  Difficult as it may be to remind ourselves of Jesus’ long walk to the cross, difficult as it may be for us to talk about and understand the death of Jesus, difficult as it may be to volunteer for an experience of grief in these chaotic and uncertain times, it’s because of these things that the joy of Easter morning is that much sweeter, that much higher, that much more spiritually fulfilling.  After all, for Jesus to come back to life, he had to die first.  And that’s the part of the story that gives the most hope, the part that cuts deeply to my bones and prepares me to dance again when the sun rises on the empty tomb, the part I come back to every year in Holy Week to walk that journey of faith once more.