The Bungee Cord

Hello,

Welcome to Holy Week, the pinnacle of life in each year of faith. This week contains the anniversary of the three most important days in the Christian faith: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. As I wrote last week, Maundy Thursday was the day on which Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper and on which Jesus was handed over to those who sought to put him to death. Good Friday was the day on which Jesus was tortured and hung on a cross to die, and on Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead, conquering death forever.

This week bears the name “Holy Week”. Often the word “holy” is associated with things that are sacred and pure, and surely that is the case for the days of this week. However, one of my professors in seminary, James Nestingen, said that a more accurate understanding of holiness in the Bible is to call something holy when it works or is the way that God intended it to be. When we read of the angels in heaven singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” around the throne of God, their song is one praising God for God’s perfect love, power, and glory; perfection that is at work perfecting all that is seen and unseen. And when we place the word “holy” onto the week ahead, we do so because we see in this week things that God is doing with perfection. Perfect in God grace on Jesus who gave a meal of his presence that would perfectly unite God with God’s people until the end of time. Perfect in God’s power that God would take upon himself all the evil the world could muster and wrestle it to an eternal death. Perfect in glory that God would raise Jesus from the dead so that every knee would bow and every tongue confess in heaven and on earth that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.

This week is “holy” because it worked and works the way that God intended it to: to love, to redeem, to free, to bring hope, and to shake the universe with joy. Of course, this week is not holy because we, humans, made and make it so. It is holy because God made and makes it so. Despite our foolishness, despite our self-centered pride, despite our attempts to assert out power, despite all of our doubts and disbelief, despite our wayward ways….despite everything, this week is “holy” because God has made it so.

On this Holy Week there is much going on in the world that is far from perfect. People starving. Bombs dropping. Shootings in schools. Drugs strangling life. Disease choking the breath right out of us. Given the imperfection that we see all around us, it is easy for us to respond to what we see. Respond by putting up our dukes and fighting. Respond by hoarding to keep us safe. Respond to our fears by walling ourselves away from others. But the problem is that when we do so, we just make things more imperfect…less “holy”.

That is why this week is so important for us….important for us to take time to gather together on Maundy Thursday and hear Jesus’ words, “This is my body given for you. This is my blood shed for you.” It is important for us to gather together on Good Friday and see the very sins that ravage our lives taken to the grave when Jesus died. And it is important for us to gather together on Easter Sunday morning to hear final whistle blow in death’s failed attempt to take hold of us and then rush onto the court in elated victory. God, we see with perfect vision, is perfectly at work in this world, and in seeing that we can live each day of this life, and even on the day that we die with hope, joy, peace, and divine determination. That is the way it is supposed to be.

Welcome to Holy Week!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger