Beginning and End

We are temporal creatures. We recognize beginnings and endings because we see reality in the context of the passage of time. We speak about “starting over”; we interpret some occurrences as being the “beginning of the end”. We interpret other things as being the “threshold of something new”. We know we have a beginning and an end, but we also see this starting-and-stopping rhythm as playing out over and over again within our lifetime, even within a given day.

We are coming around again to the opening of a new Holy Week in our lives. The pattern of our lives as Christians pours focused attention on this observance year by year. Sometimes it is early in the calendar, sometimes late, but we train our hearts to look for it, and open to its fresh meaning for us. I would like to spend the week anticipating The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday, so we can give ourselves to it as completely as we can, and allow the rich and profound themes to come to fruition within our spirits.

We will have the privilege, this Sunday, of hearing one of the Suffering Servant Songs (Isaiah 50:4-9a)  We will have the enrichment of the kenotic hymn from Philippians 2:5-11, and one of the great psalms—a prayer of desperation (Psalm 31: 9-16). Very importantly, we will soak in the reading of The Passion. This year it is the Passion of our Lord according to Mark. This gets my attention, especially because Mark was called by a great New Testament scholar of the last century, a Passion narrative with a long introduction. I will deal later this week with how the Gospel of Mark anticipates the cross of Christ on nearly every page.

Holy Week leads up to the Paschal Feast, Easter. The date of Easter is not like the date of Christmas. Christmas is always on December 25. Easter is a movable feast never falling earlier than March 22 and never later than April 25. This year it is relatively early: April 4, with Palm Sunday falling on March 28.

I noticed on this year’s calendar the fixed-date Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, is just three days before the Sunday of the Passion: a beginning and an end; a conception and a death. We think of the Annunciation, in which the Angel Gabriel visits and announces a message to Mary concerning her chance to choose to give birth to the Savior as the conception of our Lord, exactly nine months before the Nativity of our Lord. We know that the Passion of our Lord is the end of his earthly life. It was a real conception when the Blessed Virgin Mary said, “Let it be unto me, according to your word,” wherein the life of the Word Incarnate begins. It was a real death after Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” gave another loud cry and then breathed his last.

Jesus was truly conceived and began developing in the womb. He truly died and his body, prepared for the tomb. We have the rest of the week to consider insights about both these wonders of our wonderful Savior. For now, let us simply and quietly give thanks that the eternal Son—the second person of the Trinity—was willing to empty himself and take human form, willing to empty himself and be humbled in human death upon the cross. Let us bend the knee today at the name of Jesus, let us confess with the tongue today, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.