Observations from Holy Week
Things we can learn from Maundy Wednesday through Easter
(This article is a combination of a few posts I made at my church’s Substack for each day of Holy Week. I thought it could be encouraging for you, and so I wanted to share it here also with you. I hope it blesses you. —Lorenzo+)Maundy Thursday:
When you go to church this evening, it will not be a typo in your booklet: it isn’t “Monday Thursday” it is “Maundy Thursday.” Maundy comes into our language originally from the Latin word Mandatum. That word is used in the Latin of John 13:34: Mandatum novum do vobis: ut diligatis invicem: sicut dilexi vos, ut et vos diligatis invicem. (“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”)
This commandment to love is not simply another checkbox to add to our Christian list. It is the hallmark of the life of a Christian disciple; Jesus does not say it’s through how much systematic theology you know, or how many dead guys you can quote, or how holy people think you are or how much you give to popular causes. He says in the same passage “by this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
You see, having a proper love, a love rooted in God and concerned with others will make you want to know more about Him and the Gospel His son proclaims. Being people of love means you will appreciate the words of the Church Fathers and the Reformers and read them. Being grounded in love means you will put others before yourself and strive to be of service. Being a person who practices true Christian love means you will ensure that you can give to help and support those in need.
But love, love is the most important quality we are to possess. Love should be the default attitude of the Christian. It should be what we seek to practice and implement, because the whole reason we are Christian, the whole reason we belong to his church is because he loved us enough to die on a cross for us. John 3:16 tells us “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Maundy Thursday grounds us in the impact and importance of love. When Jesus wraps a towel around his waist and grabs a basin, He demonstrates His love for His disciples. Roman roads and village paths were not clean, and these people did not have bathrooms, socks, or protective footwear other than exposed sandals. It probably was not a pretty sight. But Jesus lowered Himself to the floor and cleansed their feet, because as He Himself said “For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves.” Love is modeled in the act of being a servant, and manifested in service.
Maundy Thursday is also the evening where Christ institutes the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper which we receive as Holy Communion. In this meal, which we are commanded to repeat, we are called into the sacred mystery of Christ’s sacrifice. He willingly gives His body to be broken and His blood to be shed, so that in His death we may see life. Jesus tells us “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Love is modeled in sacrifice, in the act of giving of oneself for the well-being of others.
And so, Maundy Thursday teaches us that it really is all about love. We are to be a people who love each other, love our God, and love our communities. We are to be a people who seek opportunities to serve and sacrifice after the model of Jesus, and share His love in the world. We are to be a people who seek to live and love like Jesus, who God calls us to be conformed to the image of (Romans 8:29). This evening when you come to church, to celebrate Maundy Thursday and to continue your walk through Holy Week, remember that we are called to walk like our Master, to “walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Ephesians 5:2).
Good Friday
“Into each life some rain must fall.” We all go through seasons where things seem dark, where the sun does not shine, and where we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Life is not always a series of wins and victories, sometimes it is a season of setbacks and struggles.
Today, Christians of many traditions and tribes celebrate Good Friday: the day where we observe the death and burial of Jesus Christ. In our Anglican tradition, we spend each day walking through the Gospels retelling and reliving the story, but the central point of the story (and the very foundation of the Christian Gospel) occurs today. As St. Paul tells us in his letter to the church at Philippi: “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:8)
The cross is not exactly the result that either the Apostles expected or desired, and certainly was not the outcome that the crowds who welcomed him into the city were hoping for when they waved palm branches and cried out “‘Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’” No one was waiting on a Christ who would be nailed to a cross, they were wanting a conqueror and liberator who would kick out the Romans and initiate the promised Messianic era.
Jesus did not fulfill their expectations, and He never intended to. He made it clear for those with ears to hear what would occur was as Mark 8:31 informs us “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly.” Jesus did not hide what was to come and what the purpose of His coming was. But the disciples did not have the bandwidth to receive what He was saying. We get a glimpse of that, when the next verse says “then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.”
It was undoubtedly a lot for anyone to process, especially people who had placed their hopes on one thing and who were riding the spiritual wave of watching Jesus restore sight to the blind, heal all types of maladies, calm the seas, and even raise the dead to think “wait, he’s gonna die?” His disciples had one set of expectations and things didn’t play out the way they expected. What were they to do now, they probably thought, when in fear they returned to the upper room and bolted the door and hid (John. 20:19).
Disappointment is just a reality in our lives, it will happen. The question for us is not will it happen, but how will we handle it. Will we lose faith and hide away, questioning everything we once held just moments before as being true. Will we lose heart and doubt that our God is bigger than the boat, the waves, the sails, and the sea (Mark. 4:35-41). Will we look at the clouds laden with rain and doubt that the light of the sun will shine once again.
Christ on the cross and Christ in the tomb appeared to the elders, scribes, priests, and Romans as case closed: the troublemaker, the evildoer, the false Messiah is gone. And to everyone who was on the ground at that time, that conclusion was hard to avoid. Men don’t come back when they die, and Jesus clearly died, at the ninth hour (Matthew 27:45-50) to the witness of all at Golgotha.
But the cross was only one part of the story, it seemed like the end, but it was actually the transition to another chapter. In Christ’s death all was fulfilled, and in His death the wall of separation between God and man was destroyed. Even though the skies became darkened (Matthew 27:45), even though all looked hopeless and there was no pathway forward, God’s purpose can never be stopped (Job 42:2), God’s promise can never be made of no effect (Joshua 23:4), and God’s word will always return fulfilled (Isaiah 55:11).
And so in Good Friday we can take away that no matter what occurs in our lives, no matter what disappointments or setbacks we may encounter, God will not forsake you nor leave you (Isaiah 41:10), and God will always sustain, guard, and keep us (Philippians 4:6-7). Things may look hopeless (1 Corinthians 10:13), but do not lose faith because in the end, Easter will come (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), and the sun will banish the clouds, and we will overcome (1 John 5:4). Trust in the Lord (Psalms 62:8) , put it all before Him (1 Peter 5:7), and He will ensure you make it through whatever you have been brought to (Psalm 121).
Holy Saturday
If there is one common truth in our modern age it is that the busy and hectic nature of our lives does not seem to stop. There is always something to do, there is always something calling, beckoning our attention. There just always is something else, something more, or something extra we have to do.
The Season of Lent, the period of the Christian liturgical calendar that finds its inspiration in Matthew 4:1-11, is a period where we should slow down and take some time to refocus and realign our souls and spirits to God. If Lent is a slowing down, then Holy Week should be the pause button. We should pause all the noise, and dial back into the experience of the Lord, from his triumphal entry into the city to the cross and his resurrection.
The world wants us to stay busy, endlessly distracted, and endlessly connected. But there is a wonder and a beauty in the experience of Holy silence. There is a majesty in turning off the phone, turning off the tablet or laptop, turning off the streaming service, and just being with God. It is in the moments where we strive to hear nothing else, we can often encounter the voice of our Lord, calling us to come and be with him.
Holy Saturday is the bridge that sits between the somberness of Good Friday and the celebratory nature of Easter. It is a bridge, because on Holy Saturday our Lord was laid in the tomb, his body still and silent, no longer among us in the world of the living. We know that even as His body was at rest, His soul was at work, having descended to the place of spirits in 1 Peter. But the first portion of the mystery of faith has transpired: Christ has died.
And on Holy Saturday, we are in the period of pause, where we know His death has occurred, and His rising will occur in just a short period. But in that pause, we pause, and we wait. We rest, we sabbath, we pray, we read God’s word, and we reflect on the events of this week and what is to come. We remain still and silent to the world, and we connect with God and wait upon the morrow.
While Holy Saturday may impart many things to us and teach us many truths, what it should point us to is how to pause and how to create moments of pause. Moments where we redeem our time and carve out spaces where we can meet God anew and afresh. Moments where we stop and bow our heads and talk with God, having a relationship with our Father. Moments where we open the Scriptures and let His words anchor into our souls and let Him speak into our hearts. Moments that we can just be and breathe in the presence of the one who created us to be with Him as His children.
Easter
Today is Easter, the day that the church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. Christians of all ethnicities, races, and perspectives all join to observe the day that the Son of God defeated the forces of evil and secured his victory. His death, burial, and resurrection are for Christians a matter of first importance, a truth that has been handed down faithfully and in fulfillment of the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
It is a universal human experience that at some point in our lives someone will make a promise to us that they cannot or do not keep. It can be heartbreaking when someone fails us and it can lead to all sorts of unwanted circumstances. We determine trustworthiness in people by how they fulfill their word. If they keep it, or what they say is consistently correct, we deem them to be reliable and worthy of our trust; if not, we don’t put our trust in them. What the resurrection is, outside of the triumph Christ secured for us, is the seal that God is trustworthy.
The Bible is replete with Messianic prophecies that are ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. These prophecies were written hundreds of years before his birth, and the sheer amount he fulfilled is of itself another layer of evidence that Christ is what He and the apostles say he was. The resurrection, however, not only fulfills what God said would occur (Isaiah 53:9-12; Psalm 22; Zechariah 12:10 in relation to Zechariah 14:1-4) but also what Jesus said would occur to Himself (Matthew 16:21–23; Mark 9:30–32; Luke 18:31–33). The fact that He did so means that what He says about Himself and what He promises to us can also be trusted.
It also tells us that God’s Word can be trusted. In this postmodern world, everything is fluid and changeable, it’s all up for grabs. There are truths, but the idea of an only truth is laughed at. The fact that a document has laid out such intricate details about the place of birth, time of birth, nature of birth, life, death, and resurrection that not only were but could only be fulfilled in the person of Jesus means that we must consider the Bible as trustworthy.
Therefore, if Easter is based in historical fact, in the reality that Christ has risen, the truth of the Gospel is established on a sure foundation. And if it’s true, then we must respond to it because it claims to not only impact our mortal lives but our eternal ones. St.Paul recognized the impact and power of the resurrection when he asserts:
Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1 Corinthians 15:12-19)
The resurrection is then a big deal. And so Easter teaches us that our God can be trusted, our Savior can be trusted, the Bible can be trusted, and ultimately, Christianity is true. Now it falls back on us as to what we will do when presented with the Gospel.