On March 28 this year, Palm/Passion Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week. On this Sunday, we carry palm branches and sing "Hosanna," which is Hebrew for "deliver us." We might be inclined to ask, deliver us from what? From the Roman oppressors (or other worldly powers)? Then this slogan becomes a highly political message. From sin? Then the slogan provokes another question: who is this Jesus that he can forgive sins, and, through which means? With that, as Jesus was entering into Jerusalem, this little cheerful and innocent sounding chant of the crowd already foreshadowed the events of Holy Week with Jesus' upcoming Passion: his arrest, his (mock) trial, his crucifixion, and his death.

So many people, even Christians, go through Holy Week as if it did not exist. Have you ever wondered what Easter would be like without Holy Week?

Without Maundy Thursday, we would miss out on our Christian vocation, just as Jesus stooped down to perform a menial task by washing his disciples' feet, and to set an example and lesson for us to love one another through service to each other (see John 13).

Without the solemn veneration of the cross, on which Jesus died on Good Friday, we would have no way of knowing that the risen Lord was indeed the crucified Lord (see the example of "doubting" Thomas, who recognized the risen Lord through the marks of the crucifixion; John 20).

Without the festive celebration of the Easter night on Holy Saturday with its rite of Baptism (and the opportunity to reaffirm our baptismal covenant with God), we would miss out on the notion that we were baptized into Jesus' death. As Paul said, "we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (see Romans 6).

Without Holy Week, there would be no Easter.

The Creed, on the other hand, sums up the events of Holy Week as follows, "He [Jesus] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried" (emphasis mine).

Every week, when we recite the Creed in worship, we recall that Jesus was also buried. What does this reference to Jesus' burial imply? Recently, Orthodox theologian Vigen Guroian explained in an article on "The Meaning of Holy Saturday" (found in The Christian Century from March 23, 2010), "In the Christian faith, burial points to things and actions that occur after death. In the case of the death of Jesus Christ, this means 'He, who is life itself, descends to death which he did not create, which has taken over the world and poisoned life.'"

This also puts Holy Saturday in a different perspective. As the same author points out, "Holy Saturday ... is about our destinies. Hades is a place of dread because it is a 'place of ... disembodiment and disincarnation,' a shadowy, insubstantial, spectral realm. Christ's descend into Hades [on Holy Saturday] and his destruction of it are the preconditions not only of his own bodily resurrection but of ours as well" (emphasis mine).

As we go through and participate in this solemn week, we should begin to realize that Holy Week contains also a very promissory aspect for us. By allowing ourselves to hear the full story (and become engaged in it as those for whose salvation it is meant), we will be able to experience anew God's promise to bring life from death. Then we will experience a fuller, a deeper meaning of the message of Easter.

Yours in the name of Christ Jesus, whose resurrection means victory over the forces of sin and death,
 
Bjoern E. Meinhardt, Pastor