Blessed Holy Week!
 
There are times when watching sports, that a gruesome injury will take place on the field. Occasionally, and if I’m lucky, I may not have seen the injury initially happen. However, the broadcasts will inevitably show the replay repeatedly. Knees getting bent in the wrong direction. Ankles rolling over. Bones snapped in half. Fingers and shoulders dislocated. Just typing these words make me grimace.  When these replays are shown, I don’t watch. Turn my head and close my eyes. It’s enough to see that the player is pain and surrounded by medical staff; I’ll watch as they’re being attended to or being taken out on a cart. But I don’t need to watch the injury happen, over and over again, zoomed in from different cameras and distinct angles. No thank you. I don’t want to see it. It’s gross. It makes me squeamish. It makes me uncomfortable. I’ll tune back in when the football game resumes; but while the injury replays are cycling, I’ll use that time to get a snack or use the bathroom.
 
I think that many Christians take this approach to Holy Week—whether intentionally or not. We love the Hosannas of Palm Sunday. We can’t wait for the Alleluias to return on Easter.  But Maundy Thursday, and especially Good Friday, are too cringe-worthy. It’s all about death and despair, sorrow and sacrifice.  The tone is dreary. The hymns are monotonous. The mood is bleak. The atmosphere is misery. The services are dark and depressing. We know that Jesus was beaten, crucified, and died. But we’d rather not hear about it again. No need for a replay. Too bloody. Too gory. No need to look at the cross. Ouch. Yuck. No thanks. We don’t need to see it. We’ll avoid the pain and be content with the pleasure that Easter morning brings. We’ll wait patiently and contently until the lilies and white paraments of this coming Sunday arrive.   
 
I understand this mindset. But it’s not a good one. It's like eating a sandwich without the meat and cheese. There's no sustenance or filling. We dare not skip the cross. We can't gloss over the suffering. We dare not take it for granted. We dare not overlook it, or worse yet, look away completely. If you go from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, and skip the days in between, you’re fast-forwarding past the events that give Easter all its meaning and power. In Hebrews 12:2 we read, “For the joy set before Jesus, He endured the cross…”  The joy set before Him was you and me. The joy set before Him was our freedom from sin. The joy set before Him was making it possible for us to become children of God.  And the Cross was the ONLY WAY to make those things happen. This is true. Uncomfortable though it may be to look at. Repetitive though the story has become. Each year, we must pause at the doorstep of Easter, and stare at the blood soaked cross of our Savior.  Why? So we can appreciate anew the sacrifice made on our behalf—on that gruesome, gross, old-rugged cross. The Apostle Paul writes, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  The “power of God” which brings us salvation… that certainly sounds important to me. Certainly, worth slowing down for. Worthy of our worship-filled time and attention!  One author wrote, “Without Holy Week, you miss the mocking, the betrayal, the crucifixion itself. We miss out on the passion. We miss out on those few days that were the most trying time in the life of Jesus and his disciples. Their lives were thrown into chaos. People need to know how great God’s love was, personified in those final days of Jesus’ life.”
 
The only path to the hope and joy of Easter is through the struggle of Holy Week—uncomfortably depressing though it may be.  After all, if Jesus goes through the agony and inconvenience of the cross… is it really too much for us not shortcut around the “valley of the shadow of death.” We have to go through it. It’s the only way out. Without Good Friday, the true meaning of Easter cannot begin to be grasped: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!

“Holy Week is a privileged time when we are called to draw near to Jesus: friendship with him is shown in times of difficulty.” (Pope Francis)

Many of us have made the Lenten journey so many times that it can become routine. No matter how familiar, however, Christ's passion, our repentance, and God's forgiveness never grow stale. Lent isn't simply a season. It's the Christian life in microcosm. It's a time to be renewed in faith, hope, and love as we see God's promises fulfilled, the door to heaven swung open, and grace on full display.  Lent is a season of repentance, but repentance is a continuous part of the Christian life. When Lutherans gather for the Divine Service, they stand accused. We hear who we are, the baptized, as God's name is spoken over us, but then we confess our unworthiness. We tell God that we've sadly come once again as we first came to him as sinners. And we know what sinners deserve. The wages of sin is death, and so we declare a verdict upon ourselves when we confess. We deserve to die now and in eternity.
 
Repentance, however, doesn't end with sorrow. God speaks a word through his pastors, and it's not a divine "It's ok," and it doesn't come with a wink and a nod, but with the sign of God's mercy traced with fingers. God speaks a costly word. God speaks an absolution. He does this because we don't stand alone before him when we confess in faith. We stand with one who has become our brother, our advocate, and our friend. God's messenger declare us not guilty on account of what we observe this Lent: what took place at the end of the road to Holy Week. We are innocent for Christ's sake – not our own – and so those fit for death receive life. 
 
As we’ve heard from Luke these Sunday mornings in Lent, he peppers us with warnings from Jesus about readiness and encouragement against anxiety. Jesus spoke to those who should have welcomed his coming and known what it meant. We also are those who should welcome his coming and know what it means. Do we, though? Have we been calm where we should be calm and ready for that for which we should be ready?  Jesus tells us to enter by the narrow door in Luke 13:22-30. He explains that many will claim to know him only to be shut out. They will use their mouths but not their hearts. They will know him as an idea but not as a friend. They will be like those in a crowd in a packed stadium, heading out after the game. They won't see the doors, but they will go with the flow of traffic, assuming that will lead them where they hope to go. That must not be us, however. We are called to fix our eyes on the narrow door, on Christ. This often means swimming against the current, even against our very selves. 
 
Historically, Lent is a season of fasting, of giving things up. In Lent, we are reminded of what Jesus gave up for us: his very life. And yet we are also reminded of what he didn't give up: you and me. Like a mother hen, he spread wide his wings in love on the cross. We do well, then, to hear Jesus' warnings and remember his promises this Lent. We do well to be ready and yet calm because while the end approaches. For we believers of Jesus, the end brings only a new beginning, one already settled. He who opened his arms for us hasn't closed them, so draw near to him now where he has promised to be, in Word and sacrament, and draw near to him then when he calls you to his eternal kingdom. Find refuge in his wings, spread wide to take hold of you.
 
“He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.” (Psalm 91:4, NLT)
 
“For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:7-8, NLT)
 
 
H/T:  Devotion by Wade Johnston, 03/19/25 on 1517.org.