One of the questions I get from time to time from non-Lutheran students is, “hey, what are all those ‘Lutheran’ holidays about?” I try to explain that they are more than just “Lutheran” holidays, but that most liturgical Christians celebrate these things. Those holidays include things like Pink Candle Sunday, Pentecost, Reformation Day…and of course, Holy Week.
Holy Week is the week before the celebration of Easter Sunday. It is sort of meant to be the same thing as a multi-day Baptist “revival” in some ways. It’s a multi-day series of events that are meant to prepare the Christian for an experience of God. In our tribe, that experience is not necessarily Baptism or rededication. We don’t have altar calls on Easter (outside of our every Sunday altar call to come and receive Jesus in with and under bread and wine), but the idea is similar.
In addition to being like a revival, Holy Week is also like a recreation, a reenactment. We reenact the important things of Jesus’ last days with us – His triumphant ride into Jerusalem, His Passover meal, His death on the Cross, and finally…His absence from the tomb. We do these things “in remembrance of Him” to cause us to think about Him rather than about ourselves. Personally, I usually try to find a Jesus movie to watch throughout Holy Week – just because it gets me to start thinking about Him and His story rather than my own. That’s a part of the glory of Holy Week, to lose myself in the story of my Savior.
Holy Week is also a time of Sabbath, of stopping your normal life in favor of something that you feel like you need. Instead of go-go-go, Holy Week urges us to stop and think. It encourages us to rest, to do less. This is counter cultural as the rest of our lives normally tell us to forgo rest and to do more.
Lastly, Holy Week – at least in the United States – is a time of evangelism. Celtic Christians had a concept of “thin places,” places where it seemed like the separation between heaven and earth was maybe thinner than elsewhere. It was on these “thin places” that they built their churches. I don’t think we have very many “thin places” in the United States, but I do think we have “thin times,” and this is one of them. During this time, people are more willing to consider that there may be something more than their own stories to consider, and maybe…just maybe…God could be real. This is a time when people are willing to come to church, even if for reasons that seasoned Christians would consider hypocritical or selfjustifying – it’s a time in which people are willing to let their assumptions be challenged, at least a little.
My prayer is that our Holy Week here at University Lutheran would be all these things and more. See you this week.