Holy Week is one, long worship. It begins on Palm Sunday with parade–a processional in which a redneck from Nazareth is mocked as he rides a donkey into the Holy City. During the week, the same man will violently turn over the tables of the money changers in the Temple, and make an object lesson of a poor widow who “wastes” her last two coins on a corrupt religious system. At Bethany, Jesus will be anointed for his death by a woman who, similarly, “wastes” an an expensive jar of oil by pouring it on his head.
On Maundy Thursday–named for the Latin word “mandatum,” which means “commandment”–Jesus gathers with his disciples in a rented room for what will be his last meal with them. Before the meal, he washes their feet over their objections. During dinner he breaks bread and pours out a cup of wine and he compares them to his own body and blood. Later that night, after all of his companions fall asleep, Jesus is arrested by the Romans.
He is tried for sedition, convicted, and executed in the cruelest and most humiliating way. His body is hastily thrown in a borrowed tomb before the Sabbath, without even having been prepared for burial.
When we gather again, on Sunday morning, we gather with the women who go to the tomb of Jesus, bearing spices to anoint his body. What they find there changes everything.
Please be our guest this week to hear this story and find your place within it.