As we enter into April, Lent is winding down and we are about to enter Holy week. Our normal thought pattern is to begin thinking immediately of Easter, especially since that is the day that the majority of our culture celebrates as a holiday. As a people of God, however, we need to take a much wider view, a view that begins on Palm Sunday and reaches its peak on Easter. In this scheme of things Holy week is a way for us to reflect on the difficulties and the value of God’s relationship with humanity, and more specifically, with us as a people of God.

We begin on Palm Sunday from a purely human perspective. When Jesus arrives in Jerusalem He is greeted as a conquering hero. The people of Jerusalem saw Jesus as the person who was going to solve all of the difficulties in their lives. He was going to defeat the Romans and all their other enemies, reform their religion, heal the sick, defeat all evil and bring peace and prosperity as well. When you think about it, the list hasn’t really changed much in the last 2000 years. It is a wish list containing things we believe God needs to accomplish. The truth of the matter as Jesus saw it lies in a completely different direction. By Wednesday evening He had managed to, anger almost everyone in the city, starting from the chief priests and working His way down to the people on the street. When you consider all the ways people talk of God letting them down today, it becomes pretty evident that our culture is not that far removed from the way the people of Jerusalem felt when Jesus walked among them.

Maundy Thursday is the collision point between God and humanity. On one side you have Jesus, aware of all of the events going on around him, desperately trying to take care of the people He loves, those who have become His disciples who are about to be overwhelmed by events that are far beyond their control. It is ironic that the one who can still the angry sea with a word, cast out demons, heal the sick and speak clearly the Word of God, either cannot or will not control the people who have chosen to walk their own pathway in opposition to God’s will.

The tragic events of Good Friday are seemingly the triumph of the human mindset over Jesus. He is arrested, given a mock trial and then executed. As He stands before Pilate the very people who welcomed him into Jerusalem as a gift from God shout out “crucify him” when Pilate asks what His fate should be. For the most part, those who supported Him were afraid and in hiding; the majority of the people, like most people today, were just indifferent. Little has changed here as well.

There are people in prison all over the world whose only fault is speaking the truth, and the empty pews in our churches is ample evidence of indifference. It really makes us ask the question, “what has truly changed”?

On Saturday during the Easter Vigil, time is set aside to contemplate, the deep questions that the events of Holy Week present. The perspective that is taken is not the one we expect. The questions of Holy week are the questions brought about by creation itself. Who and what is God? How does Jesus enter into all of this? How can we who are created and are ever so finite relate to an infinite God? Why would God even bother with us, much less love us? The list goes on and on, but these are the basic questions that underlie all the rest. The Easter Vigil answers these questions by starting with creation and recounting all of the major gracious and saving acts of God throughout Biblical history. The common themes that run through all of these, the lives of Noah, Abraham, Moses and countless others is that God does indeed care and that God does save, though not always the way we choose.

Only when we can see our lives and our world from this perspective are we ready for Easter. The reason is that though Christians make a big deal out of Easter, many of us cannot see how these events so very long ago truly affect our lives today.

It is our church and churches throughout the world that keep this perspective alive, enabling us to truly understand the fullness of God’s grace in Christ Jesus. Take time for all of Holy Week this Easter season and realize that as you play your part in the Body of Christ here at RLC you keep this living word alive for those around you.

Pastor Jim Bliss
April 2009