The Gruesome Gridiron of Holy Week

There are times when watching sports, primarily football, 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, 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. 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 we dare not skip the cross. 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, so we can appreciate anew the sacrifice made on our behalf—on that gruesome, gross 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 of Easter is through the struggle of Holy Week—uncomfortable and cringe-worthy though it may be.  After all, if Jesus went through the agony and inconvenience of the cross… is it really too much for us to stop at the foot of His cross for a few days? Afterall, there is no 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 and joy 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)