Category Archives: Holy Week

The “Gathering In” of Holy Week

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by in Holy Week, Uncategorized

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Christ Washing Peter's Feet, Ford Madox BrownSo much of the Christian life seems to be about “going out”. We are called to go out to proclaim the good news.  We go out to share Christ’s love.  We go out to serve others.  This is good and authentic to our faith and it is the mandate that Christ has given us as Church to proclaim the good news to the ends of the earth.

That being said, it is interesting to note that Holy Week – the most sacred days of our year as Christians – is a time of “gathering in”. This is appropriate and right, I believe, because Jesus, himself, wants this time with his disciples.  More than just a remembering on our part; Jesus desires to spend these days with us.

In chapter thirteen of John’s Gospel we read the evangelist’s account of the Last Supper. John begins by setting the context as being the time of the celebration of Passover.  More so than the great Jewish feast; this is to be the time when our Lord will “pass over” death in order to return to the Father in triumph.  Certainly our Lord is preparing himself for the hour which has arrived but, important to note, he is also much concerned to prepare his disciples.  He knows that they will be tested over the next few days, he knows that one will betray him, that one will deny him and that they will flee and be afraid.  He also knows that eventually they will be sent out into the whole earth to proclaim the good news.  Jesus knows the weakness, limits and confusion of his disciples yet he loves them. Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end. (Jn. 13:1)

Scholars suggest that the Greek term “to the end” has two connotations. It can mean, “to the end of his life” and it can also mean, “to the very limit, the very maximum, of love”.  Christ loves his disciples, his “little ones” to the fullest extent and he greatly desires to spend this time with them.

There is a great tenderness of love that is being expressed in the account of the Last Supper. Jesus takes the role of the servant when he washes his disciples’ feet.  Peter knows that this is a fundamental break with the prevailing custom of the time.  It was the role of the servant, the slave to wash the feet of the guests not the role of the head of the household.  Yet, Jesus is the head of the household who is willing to serve and he tells his disciples that they must do the same.  They do not fully understand now but they will later.  More than just a nice symbol, token or remembrance, this call to serve and die to self is the royal road on which the disciple directly encounters our Lord.

I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you. It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognize you as my disciples.  (Jn. 13:34-35) The love that we must have as Christians must be based in that very love that Christ has for us and it is in this love particularly that his little ones will be recognized as his disciples.

At this point Peter asks a question from which we all benefit; Simon Peter said, “Lord, where are your going?” Jesus replied, “Now you cannot follow me where I am going, but later you shall follow me.” Peter said to him, “Why can I not follow you now?  I will lay down my life for you.”  “Lay down your life for me?” answered Jesus.  “In all truth I tell you, before the cock crows you will have disowned me three times.” (Jn. 13:36-38)

“Now you cannot follow me where I am going, but later you shall follow me.” Yes, later Peter will follow our Lord to the sacrifice of his own life and beyond that to the glory of eternity with God but there is another, even more fundamental, following implied here. Peter must first learn the way of love that our Lord has initiated at the Last Supper.  Peter (the little one who balked at having his feet washed) is not yet ready to learn this true extent of love that the disciple of Christ is to be recognized by but he will be ready later.  And it is by the royal road of this love that Peter will later be able to then let go of his very self, even to the point of death.

We are all so much like Peter. We all think we have so much figured out yet, in truth, we all have so much to learn but Christ loves us to the end.

These days are more than just a remembrance. These days are more than something we do to acknowledge our faith.  Christ, our Lord, desires to spend these days with us.

Christ gathers us in and Christ loves us to the end.

Friendship with Christ and the journey to Jerusalem

23 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by in friendship, frienship with Christ, Holy Week, walk to Jerusalem

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A while back an Italian friend of mine observed that we Americans grossly underestimate the power of friendship.  We focus in on our projects and plans individually and even collectively as a people (we like our meetings to give us a sense of productivity), while often failing to notice the gift and possibilities found within friendship itself.  I think that my friend is correct in this assessment.  Certainly, we Americans value friendship in life yet I do believe we often underestimate the basic human need for friendship, how it shapes who we are and all the good that friendship, by its very nature, can accomplish in life and even in our larger world.

Since my friend’s observation I have even found myself wondering about the role of friendship in our Lord’s life.  Correct me if I am wrong but I cannot call to mind a book that truly explores this dynamic in the life of Jesus.  We know that Jesus had friends (Martha, Mary and Lazarus seem to hold a special place for our Lord) and we know, through the gospel accounts, that Christ continually gathered people around himself.  We often reflect on how encounter with Christ and discipleship to Christ transformed the apostles and disciples and how it transforms people throughout history (ourselves included) but how did our Lord’s own honest human need for friendship affect him and his own understanding of himself and his mission?

Any honest examination of the human condition reveals that friendship is a prime mover in the development of the understanding of a human person.  We can all probably point to experiences in friendship (some truly positive and some truly negative) that have helped to shape who we ourselves are and have brought insight and understanding.  We hold in the mystery of the incarnation that Jesus is fully human and fully God.  We profess that the divinity in Christ has not swallowed up his humanity nor has his humanity excluded the divinity.  If Christ is “fully human” then isn’t a part of being human this amazing and complex dynamic of friendship?   

I think that we often keep Christ removed.  I think we are often more comfortable with Jesus as a stoic philosopher/savior whom we can learn from and receive salvation through but who had no real human needs or, if he did, transcended them in such a way that those needs were mitigated almost to the point of being nonexistent.

I do not believe that this does justice to our Lord, to the incarnation nor even to ourselves in the long run.  To be human means to grow in awareness; to be human means to be affected by relationship with another.  Yes, the foundational relationship that Christ had (which we see time and time again in the gospel) was his relationship with the Father but relationship with the Father does not negate relationship with other people and often it is through relationships with other people (friendship included) that God’s will is revealed in one’s life.  I think of the not-so-subtle nudging of Mary at the wedding in Cana that, perhaps, helped our Lord to realize that yes, the time had come to begin his mission in earnest.  I wonder how often those times spent in the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus helped our Lord to clarify his own thoughts and his own understanding.  It seems that Peter, James and John had a unique relationship with our Lord even among his most immediate group of followers.   

Friendship is one of the most beautiful gifts of the human life.  Why would our Lord and Savior be denied this gift?  It makes no sense that he would but often it has remained an area unexplored.  We live in a time where factors and influences continually separate and isolate people.  It is my belief that people are hungering for true and authentic friendship.  I think that it is time that we followers of Christ earnestly explore the graced reality of friendship in the life of our Lord. 

As Church, we are now entering into Holy Week and it is right that we go with our Lord to Jerusalem and here I would add emphasis to “go with” and specifically I would say, “go with as friends”.  The gospel invites us to walk this way in the gift of friendship with Christ.  There is a Lenten hymn that says that Jesus walked this way alone and that is true to some extent but we as Church are now called to walk this way to Jerusalem in the ever-deepening reality of friendship with Christ and we are invited to make note of how friendship and honest human contact touched our Lord on his journey to the cross.  There are friends who loved our Lord yet turned away in fear.  There is the mother who walked every step with her son.  There is the friend who betrayed our Lord.  There is the man who allowed a place for our Lord to be buried and there is one who came to our Lord under the cover of night.  There is the woman who anointed our Lord in preparation for his burial.  There is the man who helped our Lord to carry his cross.  There are the women who met our Lord and wept for him on the street.  There are the women and the one male disciple who stood with Mary at the cross.  Where are we on this journey?  How did these moments touch the heart of our Lord?

In Holy Week, we walk to Jerusalem with our Lord and we walk the way in friendship.