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Holy Week calls us to move behind the
joyful celebrations of Palm Sunday and Easter, and focus on the
suffering, humiliation, and death that is part of the passion of Christ.
It is important to place the hope of the Resurrection, the promise of
newness and life, against the background of death and endings. It is
only in walking through the shadows and darkness of Holy Week and Good
Friday, only in realizing the horror and magnitude of sin and its
consequences in the world incarnated in the dying Jesus on the cross,
only in contemplating the ending and despair that the disciples felt on
Holy Saturday, that we can truly understand the light and hope of Sunday
morning! Why did Jesus have to die? Not to buy us
with his life, not to pay Satan or satisfy God's righteous indignation
at human sin, but as a sign of love. Sharing in the reality of this
infinite love, we are already aware from our own relationships that love
requires self-giving involvement and that self-giving can be costly and
often incurs pain. God's love for us is total and so is God's willingness to give
himself for us, even to the point of death. In observing this truth, that new
beginnings come from endings, many people are able to draw a parable of
their own lives and faith journey from the observances of Holy Week. In
providing people with the opportunity to experience this truth in
liturgy and symbol, the services become a powerful proclamation of the
transformative power of the Gospel, and God at work in the lives of
people. Acknowledgements:
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Holy
Week is the last week of Lent, the week immediately preceding Easter
Sunday. It is a time when Christians commemorate and enact the
suffering (Passion) and death of Jesus through various observances and
services of worship.