Good morning, friends. Here we are, in Holy Week. How has it begun, for you? Has it felt “holy”? Messy? Painful? If Holy Week is not something you have generally observed in your tradition, here is a quick primer. Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday (or Lazarus Saturday, as Tara points out in “Holy Week for the Rest of Us”!), and walks through the events of the final week of Jesus’ life, day-by-day. During Lent, we’ve been taking 40 days to walk all of Jesus’ journey from the wilderness to the cross, and this week is the culmination of all of that. We zoom in and see each day this week as Jesus lived into his final days. We walk with him through parades and betrayals, connection and the weight of the cross. The first days after Palm Sunday (yesterday) are less well-known, but today is Holy Monday (also known as Fig Monday because of the moment with Jesus and the fig tree!), and Holy Tuesday is traditionally a day full of Jesus’ final teachings. Wednesday is when Judas’s betrayal begins and is known as Spy Wednesday. Then come the ones that are probably more familiar to most of us: Maundy Thursday—the night Jesus shared the Last Supper with his friends and Good Friday—the final moments of Jesus’ life as he makes his way from Pilate to the cross and the tomb. Holy Saturday is a somber and silent one, with Jesus buried, many hopes lost. And then, the finale of it all, of course, is Easter—that death is not the end of the story, but LIFE. Jesus’ resurrection means Holy Week is over, and a new season (Easter) is just beginning. But first, we walk the path of Jesus’ passion alongside him, leaning in each day of Holy Week. We slow down, focus in, step our way alongside Jesus in his final days. We will unpack these more in the coming days, but if you would like a resource for leaning in a bit more and haven’t gotten your copy of “Holy Week for the Rest of Us” yet, you can find it here: https://mailchi.mp/anamcara/holy-week-for-the-rest-of-us or at the link in our bio.

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2023-04-03 14:23:23 UTC