The thing about Holy Week is that it hits us in the face with the human condition. It’s raw and it’s real. It begins with a parade and ends on the town garbage heap. I’m not being irreverent—just genuine.
Holy Week is facetiously (and privately) dubbed “Hell Week” by clergy who easily become worn out by the demands of additional services during its span. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil—they all run right into Easter Sunday. They are a drain on one’s creativity and stamina. And Heaven forbid that any of us should have a death or other crisis in the congregation between Palm Sunday and Easter; most of us have been there a time or two.
This year is uniquely challenging because we can’t be together with those we serve. The waving of the palms, the voice of children and adults singing the familiar hymns, the beloved Easter breakfast, the Easter egg hunts will not please our senses this year. Our spirits, which are typically piqued at the singing of “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today” in a packed sanctuary, will have to retreat inward for now.
A few weeks ago, when President Trump first suggested that social distancing might come to an end on Easter Sunday, many of us were aghast at the suggestion. It does not matter if one is “pro-Trump” or not (though it seems to matter a great deal to him!), the spread of the virus seems unlikely to be sufficiently controlled to allow the churches to be full, as Mr. Trump wistfully imagined. He trotted out the notion again in his April 4, 2020 daily presser,
Andy Borowitz, the humorist for the New Yorker, imagined a scenario in which Dr. Anthony Fauci convinces an unsuspecting Trump that his hope is misplaced because “there is no Easter this year.” When the president questions Fauci, the good doctor tells him that “this is a leap year.” I laughed when Borowitz has Trump say, “Well, I don’t know. I don’t go to church.” I doubt many Trump supporters saw the humor in Borowitz’s satire.
The experience of those first disciples on that first Easter Sunday was a far cry from what we now do on the Day of Resurrection. In this year, however, there is some commonality. They were scared, and so are we. They were uncertain about the future, and so are we. They were in hiding, and in a manner of speaking, so are we. But before we even get to Easter, we must pass through Holy Week. There are no shortcuts in life.
In his book, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, Joshua Wolf Shenk, explores how the melancholy nature of Abraham Lincoln’s personality was likely more akin to clinical depression. Clearly, Lincoln was depressed, Shenk says. While most of us bravely try to put the best face on adversity, depressed people see things as bad as they really are. Lincoln was able to accomplish the great feat of keeping the union together not despite his depression, but because of it!
The events of Holy Week—especially from Thursday on—help us to see things as bad as they really are. For Christians, we do not stop there because we know how the story turns out. But for now, it is what it is. There are no shortcuts in life.
Raising Basileia 