A Transformative Peace

Over the last 25 years that I have attended Holy Week services, I have learned that the experience is powerful, transformative, and more moving than I could even anticipate.

There have been Holy Weeks that I have come to with things on my mind, outside disturbances that weighed on me heavily, even a resistance to the experience at times, and despite myself, have been swept up in the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil when we have done it, and of course, Easter Sunday, which is always made more glorious for having walked through the events earlier in the week.
It is not an easy walk. Maybe we should advertise a disclaimer, like we do with dramatic television shows: “Viewers may find this disturbing,” or “Warning: Viewer discretion is advised.”

After all, we are walking with someone through the last days and moments before his execution. That it is our God who is being executed makes it that much more disturbing. Many people, MOST people choose to stay away, to look away at the most painful moments, just as many of Jesus’ disciples ended up doing at the last.

We who are courageous enough to be here do so for many reasons: out of a sense of obligation or loyalty to a God who has walked with US through tragedy; because we believe that our God NEEDS US at this time of need; because we know that there is more going on than just empty worship.

This time of year, more than any other, is an experience of ANAMNESIS, of re-living the walk to the cross, and not just telling the story. If it was merely a re-telling, we could all read our Bibles in the comfort of our living rooms.

But here is one place where our liturgical tradition gets it SO RIGHT: by physically touching and consuming the bread and wine, by solemnly carrying out the furniture and decorations from the altar, we are RE-LIVING Jesus' last experiences. We are living out in our BODIES Jesus’ beginning the Eucharist, his command to “do this to remember me.” When we strip the altar, we are physically participating in Jesus’ stripping before he is hoisted on the cross and nailed to his death.

And sometimes we are even willing to allow someone to wash our feet, and turn and wash another’s feet, though proud Episcopalians have resisted this over and over, perhaps out of embarrassment over the ugliness of feet, or out of distaste for having to “do as I have done” even if Jesus DID say it.

Tonight is a time of sadness and a time for the hope of possibility as well. If Jesus is asking us to REMEMBER him, then he must mean that his Spirit will be there for us. If Jesus is asking us to love others as he has loved us, to do what he has done, then there’s much more to the story.

This is merely the end of one chapter, with more to follow. Of course we know that.
But before we can have Resurrection, we must first have death.

The world, and all of the people who avoid Holy Week, want us to fast forward through that death part, to avoid the pain and sorrow that comes from any ending. Tonight is not a Hallmark Hall of Fame sort of event. It is too complex; there are too many conflicting emotions, and the naked reality of sorrow and betrayal and torture, and yes, promise.

Which is why Jesus says almost ironically just before he is taken away, “Peace is my last gift to you; my own peace I leave with you; peace which the world cannot give, I give to you.”

This is not a peace which says emptily, “everything is going to be okay,” as some would have us say. This is a peace which passes all understanding. This is a peace which says, “everything is NOT okay, but you will be okay, because God is with you.” It is the sort of peace which will get you through ANYTHING, even death upon a cross.