The End Just Might Not Be the End!

“What do you know about Holy Week? You’re Baptist!”

It’s a common question for those who do not understand that Baptists are of many and varied sorts. And some of us Baptists do indeed walk through Holy Week with our soon-to-be crucified Savior. It is a holy walk that I would not want to miss. To miss it, to rush past it without reflection, is to miss the full glory of Christ’s resurrection and our own.

My dear friend, Guy Sayles, writes of the need to “lean in” to the passion of Holy Week.

I have leaned-in to the dramas, paradoxes, betrayals, denials, love, grace, losses and gains which characterize the wild, careening journey from Palm Sunday to Easter. The stories and events of these days reveal so much about the human condition and the divine character.

As for me, I will listen intently this week to the laments of Jesus. I will keep vigil as he prays in Gethsemane. I will try to understand the betrayal he endured. I will witness his arrest. I will cringe at the abuse inflicted upon him. I will hear his cries from the cross asking why God had forsaken him. I will watch him take his last breath. And I will understand all over again that his suffering was for me and for us all.

I will understand all over again that the Christian life is filled with little deaths and big ones, deaths that knock us to our knees, deaths that are a part of living. I will understand all over again that a Christian’s suffering and angst, that most assuredly comes to us, is the necessary preparation for our resurrection. All over again, as I have done for so many Easters, I will understand and celebrate the miracle of my own resurrection, giving thanks to our God of rebirth.

Again, I share Holy Week thoughts written by Guy Sayles.

I’ve particularly come to resonate with the silence of Holy Saturday, a silence in which the shocked grief of disillusionment and death mingle with the wonderment and anticipation that the end might not be the end. Many of our days are like this shadowy Saturday: we’re in-between the worst and the best, the bitterest last and the brightest first. Because of Easter, Saturday bends toward life and hope, and so do our lives.  We sense a shepherd in the shadows and glimmers of light in the darkness.

I hope that each of you will journey through these Holy Week days and experience both the bitterness and the brightness. Most assuredly, the message of Resurrection Sunday is about new life and hope, rebirth and resurrection, the glorious reality that the end just might not be the end. Thanks be to God.