Next week is Holy Week: A high point of drama in the church year, leading toward the biggest holiday of the year--a holy day, Easter. I find myself feeling a little like Jesus might have as he sat at the table with Martha and Mary and Lazarus and his friends, in the Gospel story we heard for Sunday. They are having dinner together--Jesus has returned, in his inexorable walk toward Jerusalem where the confrontation will take place, a confrontation between him and the empire, the religious hierarchy and his own example of peace and equality. He knows that it's coming, but he doesn't quite know how it's going to go down--I feel a little like that about Holy Week, too, though of course I'm not confronting the powers and principalities of death and sin in such a dramatic way.
Still, I know something is going to happen. Our liturgies don't just tell us "about" what happened to Jesus, they bring us into the reality of those events in a material, as well as spiritual, way. We don't hear a story about some other people having washed each others' feet, we wash the feet of those who gather here, now. My Priest's Handbook (yes, that's the name of it) says, "If the time between Palm Sunday and Easter seems endless, it is meant to. Time is suspended as we ponder and celebrate the great mysteries of our redemption." (D.Michno). These liturgies, from the sweeping high of the Palm Sunday procession to the low of the reading of the Passion on that day, to the contemplative foot washing of Maundy Thursday and reverential procession of the Good Friday cross, to the exuberant Alleluias! of the Easter vigil bring us through these events. And it takes a long time. Our liturgical experience is designed to "get us" both in our intellects, as we think about the events of Christ's passion and resurrection, but also in our bodies and in our hearts as we enact those mysteries.
There is an independent spiritual reality to these liturgies--or, rather, liturgy--the great "Triduum," or "Three Days" of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil are, technically, one service. There's no final blessing or dismissal until the end of the Great Vigil of Easter. Sitting here a few days before Palm Sunday, we know it's coming, but can't predict what it will really be like. I can edit and re-edit the bulletins--I could even start writing the sermons (though let's get real--there's little chance of that happening yet), and still, I won't know what it's really like to encounter Jesus at the last supper until I am on my knees in front of someone's bare feet. I won't really know what it's like until I go.
But I know I won't be going alone; as St Paul wrote to the church in Rome, Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 26-27)
That Spirit is with us... but for now, we have a few more days of regular old Lent. Like Advent, the other purple season, it's one of preparation--we have a few more days to reflect on what we need to bring with us, or put aside, as we meet Holy Week. What do you need to do to get ready to go there with Jesus? To join in that parade with the palms, and then to acknowledge the depth of betrayal of the Passion play as we all shout, "Crucify him!"? Where do you need the Spirit to accompany you?
Blessings,
Sara+
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