The Third Millennium Message, Christ Church Episcopal, Beatrice, NE
Holy Week, April 2025
There is no sugar-coating that Holy Week is the worst time of the year because of the way the mortal journey of the Son of God ended. What He suffered through giving His life for the sins of the world reached its depth here. From the false dawn of Palm Sunday to the horror of the crucifixion and everything in between, Holy Week reflects the extent to which the Incarnation of Christ as both God and Man equipped Him for the experience of descending to the darkness of humiliation and human depravity so that we would not need to.
Holy Week, and really any notable occasion or occurrence in history, can be approached from two perspectives. The first, the most common and natural, is to view it from our present vantage point since that’s how we live day-to-day and normally see things. The other less common view is to see the event through the eyes of those who lived in the time during which whatever it is that we are recalling actually happened. For biblical times this necessarily puts us at least 2,000 years in the past. In some ways people are simply people; over the years we don’t change that much and still retain the same qualities and character. On the other hand, historically and culturally, things can change profoundly and ones perspective matters a lot.
The advantage is that living in the present gives us hindsight regarding past events; but those who lived in those more distant times didn’t have that perspective any more than we who live today can have for our time. Yet those who will live in our future will know this because what is our present day will be in their past. If what happens now is sufficiently memorable/notable, they will be aware of this and see it from a perspective that we cannot possibly match, since they will know the end from the beginning; whereas we cannot know that until/after it happens. Likewise, those who lived in our past normally did not know what was going to happen until/unless it happened. (unless they were divinely given prophetic foresight or revelatory insight by God)
So with Holy Week; the people who lived in it had to live through it. They had no advantage of historic hindsight like we do. Day to day: on Palm Sunday, to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. It all fits together. But they didn’t know that and couldn’t see it since they couldn’t have our vantage point. Living through Palm Sunday, they (except for Jesus) could not have known that four days from then would be something called a ‘Maundy Thursday’ or a ‘Good Friday’ (never mind an Easter Sunday!) coming up. That was the near yet unknown future for them; while for us those events were part of a by-now very familiar unfolding sequence which we can read through at our convenience.
Thus the irony of Palm Sunday. On that day the participants couldn’t possibly see what it portended: a momentary triumph reduced to tatters, a shattering disappointment and letdown over a matter of mere days. That’s a reason why my sermon for Palm Sunday will be about the events on Palm Sunday as seen from the participants’ temporal perspective. As I will say, ‘Let Palm Sunday be Palm Sunday!’ while not looking ahead to the tragic events looming over their horizon only four days from then. That is why there will be no readings from the congregation about Christ’s Passion on Palm Sunday, as is often done in churches on that day, since that jumps the gun and minimizes the events of Palm Sunday itself. The Passion Narrative is best reserved for congregational reading for the occasion of Maundy Thursday or even Good Friday, just as the events on Palm Sunday should be reserved for the occasion of Palm Sunday.
The events which happened over the Paschal (Greek: pascha, Hebrew: pesah – ‘passover’) Triduum (Latin: tri – ‘three’, dies- ‘days’), these ‘Great Three Days’ extend from Maundy (‘Holy’) Thursday evening, to Good (‘Great and Holy’) Friday, Holy Saturday (when the Great Easter Vigil would be held that evening, if we observed it), and culminates early on Easter Sunday. We will observe the events on those days during which they occurred – just like those living at that time would have done. (May I suggest that a part of Holy Saturday be set aside for quiet and personal prayer or reflection if possible, knowing good and well that some of us will be preparing for family activities and dinners on Easter? Such is the pace of contemporary life!) This is the approach I suggest that we consider during Holy Week.
If these days were plotted on a graph, you would see it represented with a sweeping curve:
1) Palm Sunday starts on a high note, celebrating Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (but it was more of an illusion, a false dawn, considering what was to come later in the week).
2) From there the curve radically plummets to Maundy Thursday (Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper /Eucharist/Communion at the Last Supper before His death; His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane; betrayal by Judas Iscariot; arrest, trial, rejection by the religious authorities; followed with His sentencing by Pilate, and humiliation/punishment/torment by the Roman soldiers).
3) Good Friday sees the absolute bottom/nadir of the curve (His suffering, crucifixion, death, burial).
4) Holy Saturday the curve begins to rise (His descent to the dead/preaching the Gospel to the spirits of those deceased in ‘prison’ who had been awaiting this moment).
5) Then the curve extends to the top/zenith of our graph, beginning with the Great Easter Vigil (Saturday evening) and culminates on Easter Day (His Resurrection), the joy far exceeding that of Palm Sunday.
And so we conclude our Lenten/Holy Week journey. Living progressively through it was quite a shock for those who struggled during that terrible week with Jesus, not to mention the personal debasement to which He was subjected that they had witnessed. Yet that ending represented a new beginning as golden the light of Easter Morning dawned. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
But this was not the end. There is a continuing Epilogue:
6) Beyond Holy Week and Easter Sunday, the curve would rise off the chart for His Ascension to Heaven (where Jesus now sits in ‘Session,’ being ‘seated at the right hand of God the Father’: Apostles’ Creed).
(The Coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost represents another trajectory of sacred history, the unique Spirit-led launch of Christ’s Great Commission, and so is not represented here.)
If we continue to extend this logical thematic sequence into their (and our) future, we would see this:
7) The curve continues upward with His future Second Coming ([Greek: parousia – ‘presence/arrival’], Resurrection of the dead, Final Judgment, creation of the New heavens and New earth).
8) Finally, the curve will extend infinitely and eternally with His ultimate Glorification/Coronation as King of kings and Lord of lords. Then His rule and reign will be acknowledged by all, when,
every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11), and will continue forever.
Any information beyond that is unknown to us.
For us, living day to day as our spiritual ancestors did, yet with an advantage of historical hindsight that they couldn’t have had of this memorable but horrific Holy Week, the bright light of the Resurrection, Easter Day, was about to hit them square in the face with the best news ever: ‘Christ is Risen!’ ‘He is Risen, indeed!’ But that we will save for the next (Easter) newsletter.
In anticipation of a blessed and glorious Easter,
Father Bob +
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Christ Church Episcopal 