Between Parades - Ann Weems
We're good at planning !! Give us a task force and a project and we're off and running!
No trouble at all.
Going to the village and finding the cold,
even negotiating with the owners is right down our alley.
AND how we love a parade!
In a frenzy of celebration we gladly focus on Jesus,
and generously throw our coats and palms in his path.
And we can should praise loudly enough to make the Pharisees complain.
It's all so good !
It's between parades that we don't do so well ...
from Sunday to Sunday we forget our hosannas.
Between parades the stones will have to should because we don't.
We have stumbled into an interesting time in the Church season – Lent is ending, and we begin the final steps in to and through Holy Week.
We know what lies ahead. The story, the characters, the happenings – all of it is very familiar and very un-nerving to journey through.
It is, as Ann Weems noted, easier to jump over this week and move from the parade of Hosannas offered here in Palm Sunday, to the Hallelujahs of Easter Sunday when the empty tomb is discovered, and the resurrection is proclaimed … afterall, who really wants to revisit the betrayal of Judas while at supper with Jesus?
Who wants to remember the lonely struggle Jesus had in the dark garden before the guards came and lead him away like a common prisoner?
Who wants to recall the beatings and the torture that marked the trials Jesus faced in those final hours?
Who really stand at the foot of the cross and watch the dying? Listen to the crowds turn? See the Disciples flee?
It IS far easier to just skip over these deep dark and distressful moments, and move from the warm jubilant celebration of arriving in Jerusalem welcomed as hero, to the early morning proclamation of “He is Risen”, and skip over the ugly nasty bits …
It is easier … but we are called to be an Easter People, and if we’re going to be there when the stone is rolled away, we need to be there in the events and happenings that lead up to that moment … Even our Christmas Story, accepts the fact that Jesus must face his trial, torture and crucifixion to offer the gift of Resurrection.
The wise men after all, offered him Gold, Frankincense and myrrh – two of which are spices used to anoint a body after death. Theologians might want to gloss over that – afterall, who wants to talk about Jesus’ death at the time of year when we’re celebrating his birth – yet, the whole point of Jesus life reached its culmination in this coming week … with each step into the darkness of Holy Week, we move closer to that moment when we stand before the empty tomb and our question – “he is risen?” turns into a joyous proclamation “He is RISEN!”
Yet to simply skip through Holy Week, something we do quite often, is to miss the foundation on which that proclamation rests …
The strength of our faith – the heart of what we believe – and what makes this a powerful approach to life, is the what is about to happen in the coming hours that lie between today and Easter Sunday … Jesus is betrayed by his friends … Jesus knows what is ahead and has a long dark night of the soul when he truly struggles with the issues and happenings he is confronting … Jesus experiences the abandonment of his friends repeatedly – first they can’t stay awake, then they stand on the sidelines as he is arrested and tried, then finally they flee in terror as he approaches death … Jesus endures the ridicule and torturous abuse that comes from the trials and confrontations he endures … then finally, he experiences the indignity of death on a cross …
Early in his ministry, Jesus challenges his disciples and us, to “take up our cross and follow me …” In the months between his birth and Holy Week, we can take up our cross … it might involve coming to Church once in a while, it could be about a few extra moments of volunteering, it might be someone saying contemptuously “YOU go to Church?”, it might even involve feeling slightly embarrassed at the thought of being connected to a Church … but this week, the real meaning of ‘take up your cross and follow me’ is revealed, and it is not an easy road to travel.
The power of Holy Week comes though, in realizing that these things happen to ALL of us … we ALL have moments when we feel alone and frightened, we’ve ALL had those sleepless deep dark nights of the soul when we struggle with something, we’ve all had lonely moments when we feel abandoned and forgotten, we’ve all struggled with pain and suffering, and we know what it means to face death … we’ve been there … So, Holy Week is uncomfortable, not because of what is happening to Jesus, but because it reminds us that we each face those deep dark moments too.
We face them – but we don’t want to be reminded of them … we like the power of the resurrection. We like standing in the early morning sunshine of the garden and rejoicing that He is Risen Indeed. We like Easter, and would rather skip over the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday bits …
The challenge then, is to journey into the coming week … to actively and willingly travel into the events we know lie ahead and experience them, not as some liturigal happening recalling moments from long ago, but experience them as our moments … to recall as retell the story, the moments in our own lives when we’ve faced the darkness, when we’ve struggled and when we’ve felt ALL of the emotion that is part of Holy Week, and to take each step knowing that we are not alone, and that we will experience the fullness of the resurrection ourselves.
After all, we are a Resurrection People. We have journeyed through the darkness and have lived through our own Holy Week when we’ve taken each step wondering if we’ll find the strength to take another … we’ve ALL been there … and it is that common experience that not only undergirds the happenings of Holy Week, but that also brings us together as community of faith … we ALL know and have experienced journeys in the darkness, and we ALL know and have experienced the triumphant power of the Resurrection … it has been the journey through the darkness though, that has made us stronger and given us the ability to take each step, to draw each breath, and to experience more fully the moment that comes on Easter Morning when our questions turn to proclamations …
Each of us have walked the dark streets of Jerusalem in our own lives … we’ve journeyed into the shadowy and dark places … and in the coming week, we’re being challenged to make the trip once again …
(Holy Week by Ann Weems)
May it be so – thanks be to God … Let us pray …
