Dear Caldwell,
Today at the Elizabeth Communities of Faith worship service, Mercy Hospital Chaplain Barbara Bullock offered a thought-provoking message about how we might think of these days that make up the first half of Holy Week. The events of the second half of Holy Week are well known – the last supper, Jesus’ agony at Gethsemene, Peter’s betrayal, Jesus’ arrest and trial, his cricifixion and burial in the tomb.
The chronology of the events early in the week is less clear. Chaplain Rev. Bullock suggested that we might consider this as the “in-between” time, after the triumphant palm parade into Jerusalem but before events hasten to the cross. That resonated – the idea that we, too, must prepare ourselves for these next days. (One way we can prepare, she said, is to avoid the tendency to simplify suffering, or explain it a way with platitudes that disrespect the experience of the person who is suffering. That advice is practical, because we all know people who are suffering. It’s also good theology. We should avoid minimizing Christ’s suffering, which only cheapens God’s grace.)
We might even take this idea of the “in-between time” a step further. We are all living the “in-between” life, the time between Jesus’ coming and return, the time between the dawning of the kingdom of God on earth and its completion. In that sense, these first days of Holy Week are the “In-Between of the In-Between,” kind of an epicenter of the Christian life, a very pregnant pause to remember that we are all living according to God’s time, after all.
I hope you have tomorrow (Thursday) night’s Maundy Thursday service on your calendar. We will break bread at table and listen to the readings that recount the darkest days that must come before the brightest dawn. Our service is at 7:30 p.m.
Shalom,
John