Why Is This Week Called “Holy”?
Note: The following reflection is adapted from an email I sent out to the rostered leaders on the LTSP email list thanking them for their pastoral work at this important, and busy, time of the year. If you’d like to receive news, updates, and these occasional reflections, you can sign up here.
Why Is This Week Called “Holy”?
That’s a reasonable question, when you consider how odd it is to name this week “holy,” a week filled to the bring with betrayal and desertion, suffering and abuse, and, finally, the death of an innocent who cries aloud in despair.
So why in the world has the Church decided to call these days “holy”?
The answer is that in the events of this week we see God draw near to us, become one of us, taking on our lot and our life that we might know that wherever we go, whatever we do, whatever is done to us…God in Jesus understands and identifies with us.
And, come Easter, we receive in Christ’s resurrection the promise that while many dark and difficult things may befall us in our journey through this challenging world, yet none of them are more powerful than the abundant life God offers us in Christ. Not fear or loss or disappointment or suffering or hate or even death. None of these things is more powerful than the life and love we see displayed in the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
So there it is: in Jesus’ cross we receive the promise that wherever life may take us, Jesus has already been there, and in the resurrection we receive the promise that where Jesus is now, we will one day also be. And throughout this week we are immersed in this story again that we might, in the word of the Fourth Evangelist, “come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31b).
And that’s why we call this week holy.
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