The Radical Expectation of Easter

Such a beautiful day. Sunshine, birds chirping, lots of hope for a wonderful season. This is great with Palm Sunday coming and Holy Week on the horizon. I love this time of the year religiously. I have already said something about Palm Sunday, but Holy Week is a particularly special time. The theme is forgiveness. We walk through Jesus last week, the anxiety that he feels, the coming loss of him to the disciples, the last supper, the betrayal, the arrest, the crucifixion and the agony of the death of God for three days. This culminates in the glory of Easter, but we kid ourselves when we assume Easter as a certainty. We need very much to experience the death of God at our hands. We kill Jesus in our collective arrogance. We have disobeyed the commandments, dismissed Jesus' teaching and we go on trying over and over again to have our own way. That is the root of all of the evil in the world. What is necessary for all of us is to look inside ourselves, at our hate, our prejudices and our tendency always to put our own needs first. It isn't always that blatant, we find ways to excuse ourselves and to explain why we are probably all right. That is why we need over all things to find forgiveness. It is what God gives us absolutely in this Holy Week.

We always had a Seder Supper on Maundy Thursday and celebrated the Eucharist in the context of our meal. That was a wonderful evening for all of us. After supper, we would process to the nave of the church where we would strip the altar and dim the lights and get the place ready for Good Friday. That, for me, emphasized my sin and prepared me for the truth of Good Friday and got me ready for the radical expectation of Easter. It was always a wonderful surprise when it came.