The Rev William Redfield is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, NY, and leader of Trinity’s Wisdom House. He is also the convener of InterFaith Works’ Round Table of Faith Leaders.
Sunday
Holy Week is that one-week period of time between Palm Sunday and Easter on the Christian liturgical calendar that marks Jesus’ final showdown in Jerusalem. In thinking about Holy Week as the preparation for Easter, we might be tempted to think that, just as Jesus rose from the dead and overcame the fear and hatred that got him crucified, so too might we eventually triumph over all the forces that oppose us. Although most of us are coming to accept the fact that we cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, we hold out the hope that God can do what we ourselves cannot and that ultimately God will bring us vindication in the end. Undoubtedly that is true. But understanding things on that level and in that sequence puts us way ahead of ourselves and keeps us from the fullness of this present moment we are in.
Without disclaiming this kind of ultimacy, I nevertheless have to say that Holy Week is really about something else altogether. Yes, there may well be some ultimate triumph inherent in the life of faith, but that is not its means and that should not be its motive. No, there is something deeper. In Holy Week we have the opportunity to find the fullness of life in the falling, in the dying, itself. More than assuming that we will automatically come out in one piece on the other side (that is, the Easter side), in Holy Week we can find something akin to the hidden victory in the vulnerability of the falling and the dying itself. But it’s not just the dying; it’s the loving through it all.
Imagine the freedom if we might were released from the forced climb of accomplishment and self-importance. We would be free to love.
Monday
Unfortunately, the history of Holy Week has been marred with accusation, blame, and the stains of anti-Semitism. A different outcome is possible when Jesus’ last days are reframed. Jesus’ death is less about the vindictive reactions of an angry God who put his only Son to death because of the sinfulness of humankind and much more about the primacy of conscious love and the abiding truth that love is stronger than death. With this shift, we are freed to love and respect all others. Tonight on this sacred night of Passover, we honor our Jewish brothers and sisters.
Tuesday
I have come to the sense that, upon his entrance into Jerusalem in that last fateful week of his earthly life, Jesus himself underwent the final intensification of his own great surrender. While that gesture of surrender marked the whole of his life, in the passage of those final days that relinquishment was deepened and perfected. But is not just something Jesus did for us; he has forged a path on which he wants us to follow. He wants us to pattern that gesture into our very being. That what the life of faith is all about.
Wednesday
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain.” (John 12:24) In this passage and others we find the very core of the Christian imperative—it is about dying to self. Invest in preserving your life, we are told, and you end up losing it. Surrender it, and you not only find your true life, but you also discover the Kingdom of God. That is not only the central message of Jesus’ teaching, but it is also precisely how he himself lived his own life and died his own death.
Thursday
On this most tender of nights Jesus gathers his followers and shares a sacred and symbolic meal with them. Following the meal, he washes their feet, showing them how they are live when he will no longer be with them in the flesh. Then in the garden, although he would have preferred a different outcome, he surrenders himself to the reality of the present moment and to the love of God as his both his Source and his Destination. Instead of any kind of capitulation on his part, this is the surest manifestation of strength.
Friday
“This is how I would die: Into the love I have for you, as pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight.” (Rumi) By all appearances it would seem that Jesus’ life and ministry are finished in a disastrous dead-end of utter defeat. But when love is at the center, all bets are off. It may only be an inkling right now, but could it truly be possible that love is stronger than death? In trusting this, how might our lives now be lived?
Saturday
One of my best friends died this past year. Being told that she had only one month to life, she not only put all of her affairs in order, but she also resolved to live a conscious death. With paralysis moving swiftly up her body, on her last night she had control only of her face. Instead of shrinking back in fear, she passionately (not desperately) kissed her husband. With her conscious death came the deliberate choice to love from this life into the next. Resurrection had already been woven into her dying.