by Rev R. Randy Day

The Holy Week narratives in the four Gospels dramatize both the human and divine natures of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. The stories show Jesus, the very human person, interacting with all kinds of other people; they also show God’s Anointed One in the fullness of holy power defying death and overcoming evil. The Church across the centuries has maintained this drama--God’s narrative--in our Holy Week services, beginning with Palm Sunday and continuing through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, the day of Resurrection.

The Holy Week scriptural accounts are about seeing and responding to Jesus in all that he is.

Jesus in the Holy Week narratives is highly visible and closely watched. A crowd gathers and waves tree branches as he enters the city of Jerusalem. He creates a ruckus when he chases the moneychangers out of the Temple. People gather around to hear his preaching in parables; “the people hung upon his words” (personal paraphrase of Luke 19:48). In response to questions, he talks about politics and theological issues of the day—issues that mattered to his contemporaries. He summarizes the Jewish law, praises generosity, and offers chilling forecasts for the future; he agonizes over shallow faith. Jesus attracts and is available to the townspeople of Bethany, where he stayed with friends.

Because of his actions, Jesus becomes a marked man. In a matter of days he progresses from a private supper with his closest associates, to public arrest and trial. He is betrayed by one follower and denied by another when the going got rough. Paraded before the religious establishment, dragged before the civil magistrate, mocked by the same crowd that welcomed him less than a week earlier, Jesus, beaten and bruised, stumbles toward Golgotha. There, his friends, family and many strangers see him die, and Jesus is hastily buried in a borrowed tomb.

Then comes Easter morning. The women arrive early to finish the burial process; the tomb is open, the body gone, and, then, before them, the Risen Christ. The women run to their friends. Mary Magdalene cries out in what one writer has called a line unmatched in all Christian literature. “I have seen the Lord.” (John 20:18)

In one of the future-oriented passages in Matthew’s account of Holy Week, Jesus tells his disciples how to see him and serve him in the years ahead. The righteous ones in the story respond: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” When? “As you did to one of the least of these my brothers [family members] you did to me!” [Again my own personal paraphrase of Matthew 25:31-46.]

How do we see and respond to Jesus the Christ, today? Do we, like Mary Magdalene, see the Lord and take that Good News to others?

We encounter the risen Lord in the church, the body of Christ in the world. In the church, we experience the love and forgiveness of God through sacramental community and worship; we care for one another and prepare ourselves for witness and service in the world.

• Do we see and respond to the Jesus of Holy Week only when relationships are smooth, when the path is covered with palm leaves, and the disagreements are left outside the temple? What about those times, as Jesus faced in Jerusalem, of troubled relationships, theological disagreement, and ethical disputes, when The United Methodist Church faces profound internal dissention?
• Do we see and respond to the Jesus of Holy Week when members of our own families and churches struggle with addictions?...... violent tempers?..... spiritual bewilderment?.... domestic dysfunction?....economic uncertainty?

We see and encounter Jesus beyond the church:

• Do we see and respond to the Jesus of Holy Week when we observe or learn of starving children, homeless people, lonely old men and women, lost travelers, teens, and adults snared by drugs and alcohol, the hopeless poor, the guilty and innocent ones locked in jails?
• Do we see and respond to the Jesus of Holy Week when the world is filled with wars and rumors of war, economic and political injustice, and bondage to powers that destroy? Do we stand with Jesus to dispute the powers of the world, or in confrontation with economic systems of exploitation?

We see and encounter Jesus for the sake of tomorrow:

• Do we see and respond to the Jesus of Holy Week by setting personal and organizational examples of hope, promise, and dawning resurrection for individual lives, the church itself, and human societies?

The narratives and teachings of the first Holy Week, and our liturgical commemoration of that week, give us all of the resources, and disciplines of faith, that we need to offer the Gospel to the world. The story became flesh there in Jerusalem and, as Acts 1:8 reminds us, was intended by God to spread throughout Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth-- giving us our global vision of ministry.

Jesus Christ is with us: Let us watch closely and, with Mary Magdalene, see the Lord and move forth in 2004 to share and live all that seeing Jesus means!

	See Also... Topic: Christian love |  Easter |  Jesus Christ |  Lent |  United Methodist Church |  Geographic Region: World |  Source: GBGM Administration
	Print this page Email this article

Date posted: Apr 05, 2004