Buckle Up: Here We Go
Seat belts are just an ordinary part of our traveling in a vehicle now. I remember when I knew the struggle people had with accepting the wisdom of their use. Now we have the hang of it. We are about to take a figurative journey using the vehicle of Holy Week and the Paschal season of the Church year and I urge everyone to buckle up.
The buckling up I recommend is not for our safety, oddly enough, but for intentional vulnerability. I want us to buckle our connection to Jesus Christ, which is about spiritual adventure, not safety. I remember a bishop praying once, beginning a sermon with “Please, join me in the most dangerous prayer we can pray:
Come Holy Spirit, come…
Come as Fire to burn, as Wind to cleanse, as Light to shine
Convict, convert, and consecrate us, until we are wholly thine.”
Honestly, he might have only used the first line; it was 50 years ago that I heard him preach. To invoke the Holy Spirit is not safe, but when we pray this invitation and mean it, is the best thing we can do for the invigorating possibilities of life in Christ.
Tomorrow we enter into Holy Week, which launches us into the Great Fifty Days of the Paschal Mystery—Easter Day through Pentecost. To be buckled up through this adventurous pilgrimage is the only way to go. Seven days of Holy Week and fifty days of Resurrection-focus will transform your soul all the more in your movement, being molded into the image of Christ. Look at the deep mystery we will find in these first seven days:
The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday – March 28 – It starts with the crowds excited over the miracle-working rabbi seated on a donkey and riding into Jerusalem. A humble way for the Anointed One to ride into the Holy City, but it is also prophetic. The prophet had exclaimed: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9) Those crowds turned from excitement to ire, soon after. They shouted for Pilate to crucify Jesus. Those are the days Jesus knew, betrayal, denial, abandonment. He knew accusation, ridicule, and flogging. He was stripped, crucified, and left to die. The rest of Holy Week we back up to Jesus’s days earlier in the week and start again.
Maundy Thursday – April 1 – This day’s odd name comes from the Latin for “command”. Very centrally we are commanded by the Lord to “Love one another.” Jesus tells his disciples they must do this. In John's epistles, he emphasizes this obligation as the thing that distinguishes us as the followers of Jesus. We are thus connected to God and pulled into the mystery of eternal life. In addition to this command, we hear Jesus say to us. “As I have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” What a call to humble service! We hear him command, “Take this bread, and eat; take this cup and drink; do this in remembrance of me.” These commands to internalize the Christ in the holy meal, to honor each other in humble service, and to love one another always, transform us into his own. The drama of the stripping of the altar in preparation for Good Friday seals everything in solemnity. Deeply moving!
Good Friday – April 2 – Everything we felt with the reading of the Passion from Mark on Palm Sunday is specially recapitulated in the reading of the Passion from John. The biddings & solemn collects, the veneration of the Cross, the achingly beautiful music, the Last Words from the Cross, the Stations of the Cross: they all move us. It is not that we are there to ponder the meaning of it; the reality of Christ’s saving presence is there to comprehend us. We are greeted by the Crucified One and welcomed. We have our words to offer as the worshiping community, but among those lines, we wordlessly thread our adoration of the one who has gathered us. The principal liturgy starts at noon and runs for an hour. The parts that follow honoring Christ for his three hours on the cross are there for us. Every minute of it, the exceptional sacred music and all are carefully offered. There is no requirement for one’s presence throughout, but any who wish can for the whole time take their place in the special presence of the Savior.
It might be news for you to learn on Holy Saturday, April 3, Sacramental Private Confession is offered in the Chapel from 11 AM to 1 PM. You may never have availed yourself to this sacrament before, but you certainly may, next Saturday. The priest will coach you through even if it is your first experience.
Picture yourself there at one of the Easter Day Eucharistic offerings just eight days from now. It will be lovely and so enriching. Now I want you to picture yourself as one who has taken full participation in the glory and gravity of Palm Sunday, the moving, rich meaning of Maundy Thursday, and the deep, transportive drama of Good Friday. What kind of candidate would that make you for the joy of the Paschal Mystery? There’s only one way to find out. Connect yourself with Jesus—buckle up—you were made for a blessing like this.