HOLY WEEK

 

HOLY WEEK

As we recall the events of Holy Week, we may feel overwhelmed by the drama of what happened. There is the ephemeral enthusiasm of Palm Sunday and then, quickly, we arrive at the supper room, the garden, the Sanhedrin, the court yard, Pilate’s judgement seat (the Praetorium) and the hill of Calvary. We can linger on each event and then try to take in the whole.   

There are countless ways of doing this. One could be to retrace our steps to last Sunday when Jesus was confronted with a woman whom the Jewish elders wanted to stone. He saved her from the stoning and also forgave her. Then we move to the Acts of the Apostles where Stephen is stoned and there is no one to help him, least of all Saul of Tarsus.

The message of the two incidents strikes us. In Jesus’ action in saving the woman, he takes on himself the cost of her sin. He could not just wave away her sin, anymore than he can ours. Sin has consequences and they have to be addressed. That is what Jesus does in his Passion. He takes the consequences on himself.

What the Stephen incident tells us is that – if we are with Jesus through our baptism – we too have to ‘take up our cross and follow him’. That is what Stephen, dramatically, did. He offered his life for others and Luke tells us he used the words of Jesus, ‘Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.’ He too took the consequences of sin on himself. And so do we.

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These weekly reflections have now reached one thousand! It is time to call a halt. I set out twenty years ago to respond to an invitation from Wilf Mbanga to write a weekly column, ‘on anything I liked’, in The Zimbabwean. I am very grateful to Wilf, and his wife Trish, for this opportunity.

At one point, a selection of the articles appeared and I introduced it with a quotation from E. M. Forster, ‘Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted...’  Then I went on, ‘it was normal to have no idea what I would write. In time, I began to browse the Sunday scripture – not for ideas – but for buried roots. The gospel is not ‘out there’ for us to harness and tame. It is within all things waiting to emerge, like sculpture from rough stone.’

13 April 2025        Palm Sunday        Is 50:4-7     Ph 2:6-11     Lk 22:14- 23:56