A week to walk

John 12-20

Sunday begins Holy Week--the miraculous, terrifying span of days from Palm Sunday to Easter. For this week, the Gospels tell us that Jesus took up residence in the Temple in Jerusalem. 

There could be worse places for us to be for a week than inside the sanctuary.

Jesus worshipped, prayed, taught, listened, argued, and met those there with compassion, grace, and mercy.

In other words, he spent the week being faithful.

There could be worse ways to spend a week than engaged in the practice of faith.

We often struggle to find the relevance of our faith in the midst of life as we live it. There are times when all that we can perceive is the great disconnect between the two. Faith is a matter of spirit, of the divine, of the transcendent, and of God. Life is seemingly quite often none of those things. Life is messy. Life is confused. Life is flesh and blood doing the things of flesh and blood. Life is where the living and dying happen. Faith is where there is no birth and no death, just eternity. Life can be profane, dirty, and painful; faith is to be holy, pure, and free from suffering. We see the image of Jesus quietly seated outside the Temple, making profound observations about the people passing. A poor widow makes an offering that leaves her destitute--she is the embodiment of holiness. A disciple wonders why some Galileans were killed by a falling tower, wondering if their sin was so grievous that God removed them; but Jesus argues instead to meet suffering at face value, without judgment, comforting the hurting. Jesus prepares for the Passover, the great celebration of God’s liberation of God’s people, creating them as holy, grace-filled community, transforming it into a redemption of every human heart, past, present, and future, through himself as the Paschal Lamb. How are we to match that presence as we struggle with a barfing child, or an obnoxious person ramming their grocery cart into our door, or a deadline that is hours away while there is still a week’s worth of work to do, or a person whom we trusted who cannot be bothered to care anymore about us? 

Stop.

Be still.

Breathe.

I once offered in a sermon that something we can try is to place a chair by the door we use most often to leave the house. Before leaving the house, we can sit in the chair--even for thirty seconds, a couple of breaths in and out--and get our minds settled on what we are about to do, where we are going, and on whom we will be with. Try this--

-I am going to the store to buy groceries

-they will feed my family and me

-we will sit together as we eat--at least, a couple of us will

-we can love one another as we sit together

Those four observations take 25 seconds to make. 

25 seconds to sit and be.

A pause.

A deepening.

Faith and life interconnect.

That is what Holy Week is all about. Stopping, considering, pondering, and reflecting on the presence of the Lord, the work of the Lord, and the love of the Lord--all of which, in turn, grant us the ability to be present in the world, to engage in the work of love, and to love one another, ourselves, and God as we seek to reflect God’s love in our words and deeds.

Use it well.