Holy Week

The poem says that there is something in nature that does not love a wall. Well, I know there is something in the human heart that cannot stand Holy Week in the Christian tradition. Almost every message I have heard for years during Holy Week service has always rushed to make sure it ended with the victory and the resurrection news. Even when I have heard people preaching on Good Friday, the ones I have heard, always have to make sure they mention that the story does not end with Friday.

There was one Good Friday service I went to and the message was a musical piece that had been composed especially for this church for Good Friday and the composer came to the traditional chord changes that usually signal an end and he stopped without finishing it. He just left the music hanging. The people almost could not stand it. Why did he do that? Why didn't he end with happy music of Easter. Why did he leave us hanging?

These are dramatic days. The play has all kinds of drama and emotions in it. It is a Passion Play. There is the bright cheerful greeting. The crowds are there. The band is playing. We got the balloons and pop corn on Sunday of Palm Sunday. But then Jesus does the Temple thing and the authorities begin to circle round him. They are not friendly. Maybe it is like a labor organizer talking with workers who sees the mid-level managers come out to ask him what he is doing and why he is there. It gets a little uncomfortable for the disciples. Maybe they start to wonder if it was such a good thing to make such a big entrance. Popular opinion can so easily be swayed. We need to keep an eye out for trouble. They don't sleep so well at night.

That is where we are on the second day of Holy Week. There is a fight brewing. The tension is mounting. Why spoil the drama by telling us what is in the last act? Oh, sure we may know the end already, but why can't we trust the story and tell it one day at a time. Dorothy Sayers, who was a great mystery writer, was a fine theologian and she said one of the great sins is for preacher to make the Christian story dull and boring. Well, it has always struck me that by telling the whole story every day during Holy Week takes the drama out of the story and makes the story dull. It happens everywhere. On Palm Sunday we sang the hymn where I was "Go to Dark Gethsemane" It is all about the prayer in the garden, the trial, and cross. Recommended to be sung during Holy Week. The last stanza is about the resurrection.

Could we not hold off on the resurrection until we have gone through the fear, the pain, the court system, and spent some time in those emotions?