Palm Sunday [audio recording here]
The royal Son of David rides into his city, the city of his fathers, and we flank Him round with reeds and branches waving madly in our hands. Tree branches punctuate key moments in our tale:
Our story begins in a garden with trees, our first parents fell at the foot of a tree, Israel made tabernacles and tents from the branches of trees (Lev. 23:39-43), YHWH went ahead of David in the branches of trees (1 Chron. 14:15). We know what we are doing. We are proclaiming with a loudness that shakes the pharisees that the Royal Son has come and we lay down our cloaks before him like the men of Jehu did (2 Kings 9:13). The shoulders of our garments carry Christ like the shoulders of the Levites carried the Ark of the Covenant.
Welcome home, O God of Israel, long have we expected your arrival.
Temple Monday [audio recording here]
Welcomed as king, Jesus does the thing that the True King ought to do: go to the temple. Welcomed as the high priest, Jesus does the thing that the high priest ought to do: inspect the house for diseases. Welcomed as the Great Prophet, Jesus does the thing that the prophets are supposed to do: levy the judgement of heaven.
He shuts down the temple for it has become a den of thieves. It’s not so much the buying and selling that bothers Him. Some of that was allowed by the law (Deut. 14:22-27). No, its that we are using the Temple, God’s house, the way that thieves use a den: a place to escape the law. Outside we rob and use unjust scales, and devour widows’ houses, and live in all manner of unrighteousness, and then to escape the consequences we come into God’s house and for a pretense make long-winded prayers which smack of our self-righteousness.
Great Tuesday [audio recording here]
We remember on this day the upsetting predictions Jesus gives of his own death and betrayal. “Jesus” the disciples say to Him on this day, “the royal entry and that thing yesterday at the Temple well… (ahem)… sir, that’s got a lot of people really mad at you —ready to kill you, maybe we should leave…” Jesus is surprised that we are surprised. He is ashamed that we are ashamed of him. He told us beforehand and we either didn’t want to hear him, or willfully chose not to because it did not suit our purposes.
Spy Wednesday [audio recording here]
Judas, once a brother and friend, goes to the chief priests and leaders and makes a deal to betray Jesus. On this day, Our Lord is sold behind His Back —behind the back that will carry the cross— for 30 pieces of silver. The rottenness of the disappointment and despair over Jesus creeps even into the company of the Twelve —He’s not turning-out to be who we wanted Him to be when we hailed him as David’s royal heir, and he’s not turning-out to be the Messiah we thought we were following when we left everything to follow him three years ago.
Maundy Thursday [audio recording here]
All things are given into the Hands of Jesus. Just like Saul was given into the hand of David, and the beasts of the world were given into the hand of Noah, so all power and authority is laid in the palm of the Son. What does he do with all power and dominion? He removes his outer garment, washes our feet, and seats us around a table in order to share a meal with us.
Of all that has happened so far in Holy Week, this is truly a terror. What God with all power comes to break bread? What manner of foolishness is this.
We are interrupted by our own sleep and our own betrayal. Christ is taken away. We flee. The darkness bleeds into Friday, and we are unsure of whether it is morning or evening for everything is so dark. The rooster crow is the only thing that clocks our passing in time.
Good Friday [audio recording here]
No rescue for the man we hailed as messiah. We staged only a half-hearted revolt and were stopped by Jesus Himself. Today the crowds who so warmly welcomed him on Sunday now become the mob who demands his death. We take the epidermal layer of his back off. We who laid our cloaks beneath him, now rob him of his cloak and whip his shoulders bare with a cat-o’-nine-tails.
He cannot carry the cross he came to carry. We are conscripted again into His Story and compelled to march behind him up the Way of Passion which ends in a stand of cruciform trees, like a clump of wasted palms. We began this week under the branches of trees, we end today under the branches of trees. A brutally fitting end.
Something tears at the back of my mind. Something deadly holy haunts me. Something from long ago. Something with which I do not want to reckon: Here we are again at the foot of a tree, here the dying GodMan hangs from branches like fruit in the Garden of Eden.
There is no time to follow these thoughts, we must tear Him down and hide Him. We are terrified and ashamed and even the ones who did the killing know “this was the Son of God,” and the whole creation groans and gives up its dead. Heaven won’t have him, earth refused him, the grave will not accept him —its choking already on what it has glutted. Where will the cadaver be sheltered?
Holy Saturday [audio recording here]
This week has been loud and riotous. What is there left to say or do? Finally the land shall have its rest from us. Lock the doors and fetter the windows. Herod has no appetite, Pilate’s marriage is failing, the Pharisee clutches the Sadducee’s arm for succor, and strangers find the strangled body of Judas where it fell and burst open when the branch broke from the weight of his hanging.
Some silences are louder than shouting. Some waiting more restless than action.
Easter Sunday [audio recording here]
The spices we were carrying lay scattered and tumbled on the burial grounds. Perfume pours-out, littering the area, mingling with the vestiges of the Roman watch which is nowhere now to be found. Dazed we make like mad for the brothers.
We come running when we hear the news. We are crying: so much anger, so much shame, so much hope. This is too glad to be true.
Christ walks in the garden in the cool of the new day, the eight day of the old week and the first day of the new world. Under trees he speaks to woman and tells her the time has come. He has crushed the Serpent’s head, and has risen. The bruises from the valiant obedience become regalia for the firstborn King.
He walks with us on the road to Emmaus, and gives us things we cannot think. We are too tired from doing what we thought was “reckoning with reality” to reckon with Reality Himself as he walks alongside us. Only in the breaking of bread do we see Him for who He is.
Death where is your sting?