Every year, I have lofty thoughts about how I want to engage Holy Week – contemplatively, spending large amounts of time pondering the week Jesus had just before His death, journaling, engaging contemplative practices… But every year – life happens. This year, however, I had planned ahead. Way back in January, I started planning for this Holy Week. I really wanted to attend a Protestant Stations of the Cross service. So, I wrote to liturgical churches all over Memphis looking for one. I found 2 that would suit me, so I chose one, and put it on my calendar for today – Good Friday. I purchased the Lent reflections booklet from the Transforming Center. I even talked to my pastor about thinking about doing a visual Stations of the Cross service at our church, since I know my pastor is into re-engaging ancient practices as well.
And then – life happened. Well, it was more than life really. It was death. COVID-19. A global pandemic. I already did one of these things. It was awful. And if you had told me I’d have to do another one – well, I would have definitely NOT signed up. The stress and grief of Ebola was enough for me. I didn’t need COVID as well. But, here we are. Needless to say, like most people, my Holy Week didn’t look anything like I planned.
Well, that’s not completely true. The Transforming Center is offering an audio version of their Stations of the Cross service, and my pastor DID buy the idea of a service at church. Since it was going to be only visual anyway, it’s been adapted, and that will be available at 6:00 pm Central, if you’d like to participate. I was involved in the creation of it last night – and it is really moving. And, I did use the Lent devotional meditations I got from the Transforming Center. So, some of it happened…
But otherwise, the week went to hell in a handbasket. We had been praying and hoping (against hope) that COVID-19 would not enter Sierra Leone. The government was being extremely proactive about that, closing borders, canceling gatherings, closing schools, etc. And for a while, it looked like they might dodge that bullet. But last week the first case was identified, then a second, now 7… We all know what this looks like.
Or do we?
I don’t know.
Don’t you feel like you say that a lot these days?? We don’t know much of anything at all right now, do we? The virus appears to act differently in Sub-Saharan Africa than it does other places. Though if anything can be said about this virus, it is that there is a fair amount of mystery about it. So, maybe it won’t spread widely as it has in the West. I pray that is true. But meanwhile, because we work in Sierra Leone, among people who are not only extremely vulnerable to such illnesses and have PTSD about viral epidemics with Ebola so recently in their past, but also who have no resources to buy extra food for a lock-down, or even go get water for their household, or take care of minor medical issues in their home, or have any food at all if they can’t go sell something for the day to make enough to eat, and in most cases, don’t even have a house, just a room, shared by 6-10 people – well, their issues in a lock-down scenario are not even comprehensible for most of us.
So, we have spent most of this week writing grant proposals, and doing fundraising campaigns, and applying for emergency relief assistance, and putting emergency plans in place to help women cope with the fear and the virus, and communicating with donors, and praying. Lots and lots of praying. And every day dealing with the “I don’t knows…” We know that if the government implements a stringent lock-down, where people can’t buy and sell, and the markets and shops don’t sell, the women we serve will literally have no way to eat. So, we would want to provide emergency rations to try to see them through a lock-down, but there are a lot of women in our program these days! And our resources are pretty thin. We would reach out to ministry partners, but we don’t really know what will be required, and we don’t want to ask for something that is not going to be needed. So many dilemmas, all stealing so much mental energy. And then there is just the regular stuff that social justice ministry brings with it, complicated by the pandemic realities that all of us are dealing with.
So, earlier this week, I was upset. I was complaining to the Lord that my Holy Week had been stolen from me, and I was not able to engage with Him the way I wanted.
And then I read this reflection question in my Lent devotional – “What plans will I make to walk with Christ during this Holy Week? How will I share in his suffering so that I can also experience his Resurrection power?”
And the Lord spoke to me. This IS that. This IS walking with Christ during Holy Week. It’s the reason He came. To walk among the broken and the suffering. To intervene in the lives of some – and not of others. To know our struggle and our pain in this broken world. He didn’t fix it though. Not in His first coming. It’s still broken. It’s still painful. But He is WITH us in it. And He WILL fix it one day.
During HIS “Holy Week” (which looked a whole lot more like the week from hell in the moment), He rode into Jerusalem in tears (Luke 19:28-44), and He observed that things were not as they should be. The temple, intended to be a house of prayer for ALL nations was keeping worshippers at bay through profiteering and avarice. (Mk. 11:15-19) The fig tree was not producing fruit. (Matt. 21:18-22) The religious leaders were pointing people away from their salvation instead of toward Him. (Mk. 11:27-12:12) The rich are giving little and the very poor are giving everything they have to live on. (Mk. 12:41-44) Israel, the chosen nation of God, was being ruled by and paying homage to a tyrant. (Matt. 22:15-22) The people he had been pouring into day after day for 3 entire years don’t trust Him and are about to turn on Him. (Jn. 13:21-38) Nothing was as it should be.
Sound familiar? Nothing is as it should be?
And then the Lord reminded me: walking through this Holy Week, filled with pain, and sorrow, and uncertainty, and fear, laboring to find ways to mitigate the harm to vulnerable, hurting women in Africa, providing pastors and church leaders with Biblically-based teaching resources to bring a wholistic Gospel to their congregations in a pandemic and beyond, seeking resources to provide for those who have none – this is what Jesus would do in this Holy Week. This is the way of the Cross. This is living a cruciform life. It is not always contemplative and quiet. Often it is loud and ugly and scary and painful. This is the way of Holy Week.
“All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.” (Phil. 3:10-11 GNT)
Do we really though?? It sounds nice on paper, but…
How will you walk with Jesus on this Holy Weekend, as we journey with Him to the cross today, sit waiting in the darkness and uncertainty of tomorrow, and rejoice in His power and victory over death on Sunday? But wait, you say, we don’t sit waiting in darkness and uncertainty on Saturday – we know the end of the story.
Precisely Church! We know the end of the story. Even THIS story. This horrible story being written in our world today. It is ugly and painful and full of uncertainty. But we serve the risen Savior. He DOES win, and the glory that will be revealed is not worth comparing to the suffering of this present time. (Rom. 8:18)
Rejoice – even as you walk this dark and painful journey with Jesus – on the Way of the Cross.