The Bungee Cord 4-2-23

Hello,

Today, Christians throughout the world open the door of Holy Week, step inside, and make it home for these eight days. Palm Sunday (Many churches end this day with the reading of the story of Jesus’ final steps to the cross, and so it also bears the name “Passion Sunday.), Maundy Thursday (The day when Jesus gathered his disciples for his final meal, the Lord’s Supper, and also the day when he was betrayed and handed over to those who sought to kill him.), Good Friday (The day of Jesus conviction, crucifixion, death and burial.), and Easter Sunday (The day when sin and death became perpetual losers at the resurrection of Jesus.). Those are the main events of what has been come to be called “Holy Week”.

Have you ever wondered why the word ,“Holy”, was attached to this week? Maybe it could have been better called “The Upside-down Week”, or the “Agony of Defeat/Thrill of Victory Week”, or “Can You Believe This Really Happened Week”, or “The Silver Lining Week”. I say that these other names might be better because when I think of the word “Holy”, I think of something that is so transcendently divine that it has an aura of heavenly glow, a glow that is so divinely radiant that one cannot bear to look into it. The “Holy Bible”, a book that contains the word of God, a book upon which (as I grew up) one would never place another book on top of it. The “Holy” Temple, the touchstone of God and earth where only a chosen few could enter the room with the footstool of God, the altar (Somewhat akin to the altar area in the church in which I grew up that was fenced off by the communion rail and only the chosen few were allowed in it.). Given such an understanding of “Holy”, might not a week that is full of fickleness, betrayal, denial, and death be better labeled something else?

Well, in addition to this divinely pristine understanding of the word “Holy”, there is an understanding of this word that far more fits the week that we have just stepped into, and that understanding of “Holy” is this: something is “Holy” if it works the way that God intended it to. This is the understanding of the 3rd or 4th Commandment (depending on how you number them), “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” In other words, “Remember the Sabbath day so that it might work the way God intended it to work, as a day when the voices of the world are far from our ears and the voice of God sits on our eardrums and tongues. God intends the Sabbath to be a day where the light of his grace is so laser focused on you and me that nothing can keep that grace from transforming our lives. That is what God intended to happen on the Sabbath, and when it does, that is a Holy Day.

And that is what happened and still happens on this week. On this week, God was so focused on his saving grace for you and me, that he was not about to let anything get in the way of its shining in your life or mine. Not our fickleness, not our betrayal, not our denial, and not even our death was God going to let come between God and those who bear God’s image. This week is “Holy” because in the events of this week, God made sure that it was going to function the way it was supposed to: to change everything with God’s grace and mercy. On this week God intended to claim victory of people’s hearts through humble love, and God did. On this week God intended to shove his love down our throats so that when we would look at our lives and wonder how God could love us, we would rest assured that God who unites God’s self with us does, and he did. On this week God intended to take unto himself, like a black hole of grace, anything that might try and claim us as its own, and take it dead, to the grave, and God did. And on this week, God intended to even crush the power of death so that we might be with him forever, and when Jesus, and Jesus alone, walked out of that tomb, God did.

This week is “Holy” Week because this was a week that functioned exactly as God had intended it. So, come on into this week, rest in it, live in it, breath in it, and rejoice in it….because thanks to God, it is HOLY!

Have a great week,

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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