Drama and Hope

We are preparing ourselves for the most intense time of the church year, Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. It is such a whipsaw of emotions: Jesus entering Jerusalem with the crowds singing his praises, his last meal with his disciples, his arrest, the “trial” that was always intended to end him, his torture and death…and then his resurrection. We feel the intensity of this rush of activity, and then the holding of our breath until his resurrection is discovered.

In these days when we hear news items that trouble our hearts, when we see the damage human beings can inflict on one another, it is easy to fall into a morass of grief and powerlessness. But we can look to Holy Saturday for wisdom. In Scripture (Matthew 12:40, Ephesians 4:9, 1Peter 4:6) we hear that Jesus, not merely a corpse in a tomb, does work on Holy Saturday. He descends to hell, or more accurately to Sheol, a place rather like Purgatory, a waiting room for the righteous who are dead. He breaks the chains of those who are there, breaks the gates of Hell, and brings the righteous out of their graves to the Divine Presence. After that, as Easter dawns, he is resurrected.

Death doesn’t have the last word. Jesus is not in the tomb on Sunday morning, he’s taken care of business down in Sheol, and now he’s out of there.

So in these days of worry, what is the business that we might be taking care of to prepare and to take us from a sense of fear to a sense of infinite divine possibility?

First, we pray. Second, we listen. Third, we do something concrete that makes the world, or our city, or our neighborhood better. To undergird this spiritual discipline, I urge you to come to Church not only on Palm Sunday and Easter, but also on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. If you want to really feel what it is like to go from joy to terror to exultation, you need to walk the journey with Jesus, and this is a powerful antidote to the notion of Easter as merely a time to dye eggs and eat chocolate bunnies. Come and walk. Pray and sing. Grieve and celebrate. This is all of life compressed into a week of drama and hope. Come. Jesus will be with you. You will hear what is most important. Then, you’ll know what to do next.

Be blessed and be a blessing,

Mary+