Home    Church    Another Holy Week

Another Holy Week

Church, Contemplative Life, Practices, Relationships, Travels, Worship Comments are closed

It is Holy Week. The week we recall Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. His final week with his disciples. His actions in the temple. His perplexing parables. His final meal. His agonizing last hours. The uncertainty of Saturday. The joy of Sunday morning.

It is a week of central significance to anyone claiming to be, or aspiring to be, a disciple of Jesus. One of my favorite weeks as a pastor. Also one of the busiest.

This year spring break for DC public schools coincided exactly with Holy Week. We decided to head to Florida, even though that meant we’d miss out on some of the Holy Week excitement. Our community in DC is joining a collective outdoor Easter worship service sponsored by a DC area ministry, Restore Together. An exciting collaboration between local churches, seeking to collaborate on issues of oppression and poverty in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection. I’m sad to miss it.

But I needed a Holy Week of another sort. One which involves playing in the pool with my children. Teaching my ten-year-old to play tennis. Finding seashells with my five-year-old daughter. Reading and silence in the quiet cool of a Florida morning. A game of Settlers, after which we have time for… another game of Settlers.

florida_pool
Late afternoon Florida sunshine

So after celebrating Palm Sunday with our Roots DC friends, we hopped in the car and headed south, for a non-traditional Holy Week.

We won’t be joining a Maundy Thursday service, or partaking in a seder. We may have a meal of burgers on the grill and soda instead of unleavened bread and wine.

Our Friday will be good if we can catch a boat ride to do some Florida wildlife viewing.

Our Saturday may be dark, if the weather is cloudy, but it may also be sunny and bright and filled with laughter and giggles.

Our Easter morning may not involve a sunrise service, but it may find us celebrating the resurrection by dipping our toes in the ocean, or tossing a frisbee on the sand.

Perhaps this is a sacrilegious way to spend this particular week.

But now, midway through—as I get to catch my breath for the first time in months, as playing with my kids happens without the interruptions of phone calls or emails, as we enjoy a leisurely breakfast as a family, as my spirit is beginning to feel rested and renewed—I’m thinking this too, is a Holy Week.

You may also Like

A Palm Sunday Prayer for Peace

Holy Week begins this Sunday. It is a familiar week, beginning with Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. But maybe so familiar that we still aren't quite hearing the full story. Marcus Borg reminds us that there was not one, but two processions entering Jerusalem that year. Two very different processions.

Opening Our Doors

A church in west Michigan recently decided that it is no longer a "church," but a religious community open to all beliefs. Many are responding by declaring this a tragedy. Now there is certainly something to mourn when a community seems to turn its back on its original tradition. Yet I wonder if the common reaction that this is a horrible and tragic event is the only way to view this. Perhaps our own response is in some ways the tragic one.

‘Spiritual but not religious’: A Response

The real reason 'spiritual but not religious' is a cop-out. A guest post by Robert Kroese. Recently I ran across a blog post with the title My Take: “I’m spiritual but not religious” is a cop-out. I read the post with interest because I’ve often thought this very thing: that claiming to be “spiritual” isn’t an answer to a question about one’s religious beliefs, but rather a way to avoid the question while sounding like one has put some thought into it.

Of Paths and Prairies, Gods and Tears

The story begins as the European pioneers crossed the Alleghenies and started to settle the Midwest. The land they found was covered with forests. With great effort they pulled up the trees, pulled up the stumps, and planted their crops in the rich, loamy soil. When they finally reached the western edge of the place we now call Indiana, the forest stopped and ahead lay a thousand miles of the great grass prairie. The Europeans were puzzled by this new environment. Some even called it the Great Desert. It seemed untillable. In 1837, a blacksmith in the town of Grand Detour, Illinois, invented a new tool. His name was John Deere, and the tool was a plow made of steel...

The Impossible Future

Excerpted from John D. Caputo’s On Religion: We say that we want the future to be “bright,” “promising,” “open.”…

3 Comments

  1. Bryan – I hope our good lord hummed a tune to himself “just because” nothing.
    “Perhaps this is a sacrilegious way to spend this particular week”. You need a beer to go with that R&R!! Enjoy!
    🙂

  3. Barbara says:

    Good for you. Your family feeling like a priority shows them God’s loving embrace for them more than your business at work.

Comments are closed.

Close