I get it; you’re busy. You have your job, you have family demands that can’t wait, and a list of chores as long as your arm. I’m right there with you. These are all urgent demands on your time. Who has time to go to church on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of Holy Week? Not to mention, it’s kind of exhausting.
Despite all that, it is worth your time. How can the biblical message possibly compete for your attention in an era of ubiquitous stimulation through social media and click bait? There are always more followers to seek and more fascinating articles just around the corner. Not to mention the latest news, and we don’t dare get left behind—even for just a few hours. I’m sorry, but it’s hard for some really old stories about a Jewish rabbi being executed by Romans to hold our attention in the ego, fear, and anger-feeding frenzy of today. We haven’t been an oral culture for centuries. We need more than that to capture the imagination and draw us in in a way that makes us face the reality of what Jesus did.
We need to enter in. We need to sit with Jesus and the twelve in the upper room, eating the last supper and wondering if we were guilty of betrayal. We need to follow in the still darkness to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. We need to be frightened by the sudden arrival of soldiers. We need to stand by the warming fire with Peter to see the abuse and hear the disbelieving words at the trial. We need to hear the half-interested questioning of Pilate and the fury of the worked-up crowd. We need to see the Roman soldiers beat and whip Jesus (maybe hold the whip in our own hands?). We need to see the blood dripping down his forehead from the crown of thorns placed there in sacrilegious mockery. We need to stand in the crowd along the route to the Place of the Skull, seeing Jesus strain under the weight of the cross. We need to join Mary at the foot of the cross, watching her son die in agony. We need to witness the faith of a dying thief, and the awe of a centurion. We need to feel the fear of those in the temple witnessing the tearing of the veil as God came out. We need to hear the scheming of the Pharisees who sent a guard to the entrance of the tomb. We need to feel the confusion of the women who arrive early in the morning to an empty tomb, but don’t understand what it means. We need to hide with the disciples in fear of the religious leaders, only to experience overwhelming joy at seeing the risen Lord. We need to be part of this drama.
The best way to enter into the drama of Holy Week is through attending the services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. It is in these services that the passion of Jesus can become real, and we realize that this isn’t merely about events that happened centuries ago in a distant land; these events are playing out right now in our hearts. Time and distance cease to matter as these events play out before our very eyes—not as a play where we are the audience—but as participants. After the rooster crows three times, Jesus doesn’t just look at Peter; He looks at me.
But you can’t enter in if you aren’t there. This Holy Week, choose the important over the urgent. Experience the drama that makes it possible to cry out in joy, “He is risen!”
