It’s been quite a month, and I am unsure how we are already at the end. I am sure many of you are focusing on Holy Week and slowing down to be more contemplative as we walk through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.
This year, I also celebrate my birthday on Good Friday. While a birthday is a reason to look back and remember God’s faithfulness, it’s not lost on me that celebrating it on Good Friday adds more gravitas to the day.
I have been celebrated by friends and family near and far and have several more coffees and conversations scheduled for the week after Easter. Still, as someone deeply fond of the liturgical calendar, I knew I wanted to spend Holy Week meditating on our Lord’s journey to the cross.
As Christ followers, sometimes it is easy for us to become overly familiar with the Bible stories. All through this month, as we have journeyed through Lent, we have also been bombarded with images of the Easter banner. Chocolate and candy line the checkout counters at stores, and you can stock up on every imaginable colour of Peeps!
Growing up in an Indian home, we celebrated Holy Week with church services and simple meals. Easter Sunday was a day to rejoice in the Lord's resurrection and an opportunity to fellowship with loved ones over a hearty meal. Candy, Easter baskets, egg hunts, and the Easter bunny were not a part of my story or heritage, and since the Middle East, where I grew up, was always hot, it did not connect with springtime or pastel dresses.
If anything of that season stood out in my memories, it was the half-day fasting my parents and all the adults in our church undertook on Good Friday. We spent nearly 3 hours in church as the pastors would teach on the words Christ spoke from the cross and have time for quiet prayer & meditation.
As a child, those three hours seemed like forever, and I couldn’t wait for the service to end! Fast forward to the present, and those rhythms no longer exist. Yes, we attend a Good Friday service every year, but teaching my children the rhythms of slowing down during the Lenten season and Holy Week and being contemplative has been hard. The attractions the world brings into our lives with Easter often seem to take more room in our heads. Whether planning the Easter Sunday lunch or shopping for new dresses and ensuring we have enough chocolate and eggs for the Easter hunts, days like Spy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday disappear from our schedules.
We so easily jump from the start of Lent to Easter Sunday without much care.
So, this year, I encourage you to slow down. I recently read a wonderful essay by author Jen Pollock Michel, On Reading the Bible More Slowly, which was a source of deep encouragement to me to go back and read the Easter story and focus on all the details.
We fail to feel the full force of what Jesus underwent on Good Friday. Crucifixion was no easy death, and while I could write down what Jesus endured for us, I will direct you to some articles that give us the excruciating details of Christ’s slow and painful death on the cross. Cahlien Shrier, Ph.D. from Azusa Pacific University, has taught a series of lectures on The Science of Crucifixion. The hours of searing pain, suffocation, loss of fluids and a compressed heart, and feeling of the chill of death creeping into his body must have broken Him. Yet, even in that pain, he cries out to God to Forgive those who sinned against Him and to surrender His spirit into His Father’s hands.
Easter will soon be here, and we will be in the season of Pascheltide, celebrating our Lord’s resurrection. But as we wait, let us remember the bright sadness of this season as we contemplate our sin and brokenness that led Christ to the cross.
What I’m reading this month:
I have followed Jonathan Haidt’s work over the last few years and have been hooked & fascinated by his research! I first read his book The Coddling of the American Mind, co-authored with Greg Lukianoff, and then proceeded to read the others. I highly recommend his work and would encourage everyone to grab a copy! Let me know if you want to have coffee and discuss the book!
What I’m listening to this week:
Composed by Gregorio Allegri, this setting is based on Psalm 51 ( Have mercy on me, O God), composed exclusively for use in the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services. It was initially forbidden to be used outside of the Vatican. Still, a popular story tells us that when visiting Rome with his father, Leopold, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart heard it performed at a Wednesday service and rewrote it from memory. Although there are doubts about the story, Mozart would go on to transcribe the piece and would later be invited to Rome by Pope Clements XIV to praise him for his musical genius.
Historically sung and performed during all Holy Week services, this piece reminds us of the darkness that Christ entered into and the sorrows He carried for us. May we always be grateful for the pain He endured.
Photo by Sebastian Staines on Unsplash