Reflections on Holy Week

The church has just exited Holy Week to loll about in the relative giddiness of the Easter Season. Holy week is probably the busiest time of the year for ministers (and why any ministers you may see are walking around slightly shell shocked)(give them a hug). Palm Sunday services often have the most pageantry of any Sunday morning service all year. Then comes Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, Sunrise service on Easter morning, then usually another service or two later in the day. As you can see a busy, busy week.
Each year the dozen or so congregations in the greater Peoria area (we actually call ourselves the Illinois Valley Cluster) get together and share special services throughout the Lenten season. Last week we had four. I preached the Palm Sunday service . The elder statesman of the ministers group preached on Good Friday. His sermon was stunning -- really really good.
A typo had him preaching on the wrong verse, which is my fault (I typed 20 rather than 30). But he took it is this amazing direction. He set up this thought: did Jesus have to die on Good Friday. This is a question with a long history in Christian Theology, and faithful people make good points on both sides. The sermon continued that if Jesus didn't have to die, then he died because humanity chose it. Humanity gets that choice, he said. We observe Good Friday because we need to confront that part of ourselves that would destroy the image of God (ready for a technical term? It's known as the Imago Dei) in another person. It ended up being a Dove sermon, and a really good one.
It snowed here as we went into church on Easter. No one alive today or born in the next 50+ years will see an Easter so early. I'm hedging my estimate conservatively because I'm pretty sure there's more life expectancy progress to be made.
Which makes me think...shouldn't we be spending more money on making sure nobody dies super early than on making sure a few people don't die for a long long time? Another post, to be sure.
The next post you should see from me is a "DMing the Bible" no later than Friday. Maybe I'll post the Palm Sunday sermon as a link, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to.