THIS HOLY WEEK

Paul T. Stallsworth

For many people, Holy Week includes only Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.  On Palm Sunday, the gathered Church remembers Jesus triumphantly entering Jerusalem with the crowds excitedly waving palm branches.  Then many skip over to Easter Sunday and return to the sanctuary to recall the joy and glory of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  For many, that is all there is to Holy Week: Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday.

When Holy Week is abbreviated to include only these two Sundays, much is missed.  Holy Thursday and Good Friday are skipped.  But they should not be avoided.  After all, on the first Holy Thursday, Jesus gave His disciples and the Church the glorious gift of Holy Communion.  And on the first Good Friday, Jesus gave up His life on the Cross for the salvation of the world.  Holy Thursday and Good Friday services draw their congregations into these powerful events.  And they more thoroughly prepare us to celebrate Easter morning and to experience the power of the Resurrection.

This Holy Week greet Jesus, as He enters Jerusalem, with palm branches.  Then relive Jesus giving us the gift of Holy Communion.  Then go to Calvary to mourn as Jesus suffers and dies on the Cross.  And finally, visit the Empty Tomb and encounter the Christ risen from the dead.

This Holy Week be faithful.

“He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 53:2b-6

From April  2004 St. Peter's Post