Holy Week Ramblings

Holy Week makes me cry. Those of you that know me well know I cry often anyway, but Holy Week really does me in. I think it's because it is the only week of the year that I am truly confronted with the humanity of Christ.

When I pray to or think about Jesus it is never as a man, but as God Incarnate, all powerful and mighty, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and so on and so forth. The problem with Holy Week is that while all that is still definitely present, the less thought of MAN part of Christ emerges. The man that had friends. The man that laughed and goofed off with his friends. The man that loved compassionately and without condition. The man that could have defied death forever who instead chose to die the most horrible, painful, humiliating death imaginable. And the part that really gets me is that he endured all of that suffering on the off chance that people would believe in him and be saved. People that mocked him and scorned him, and even people that he had never met or that had even come to be, he died for us to have a chance, just the chance to choose God over this world. Those are odds that I wouldn't take, but he did.

Those odds remind me of everything I have that I wouldn't want to give up, and of all the things that I am provided in this life that Christ never had. I have a beautiful family. Christ didn't. (Unless you are a French monarch, then you can feel free to argue this point. And unless you are a history buff or a conspiracy theorist this aside is probably lost on you anyway.) I have a community that I belong to, I can walk the streets without being mocked, unless my hair is particularly tragic that day. I have never been spit on. I have never been truly betrayed. I have a permanent home. I have friends that understand me and can sympathize with me. Jesus gave the chance to have all that up to try and reach a world that rejected him, and still does to this day.

And if that's not enough to dwell on this week, the worlds rejection of Christ reminds me that even though I claim Christ as my own, as do many others, that doesn't keep us from screwing up in huge ways. There are times when it is hard to distinguish Christians from the rest of the world. We fail. Every day. Colossally. As a whole we run the gambit of sin. We murder, cheat, lie, steal, have sexual sin, drink too much, maintain addictions, manipulate and slander, and even worse, sometimes we do it in the name of Christ. Like he has anything to do with our own selfish sins.

And then, just when I start to get really depressed, the circle connects and I am reminded that because of our sin, Christ died on that cross for us, for people that mocked him and scorned him, and even people that he had never met or that had even come to be. He died for us to have a chance, just the chance to choose God over this world. Those are odds that I wouldn't take, but I am glad that he did.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

Matthew 26

Matthew 27

Matthew 28