The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
April 1, 2007
Vol. 10 no. 13

Everything But...
           Nobody ever imagines Palm Sunday without a load of children running back and forth along the road waving the palms. Absolute chaos and very much fun. Just watch out for those palms; waving one yourself is good protection!
           Fun, however, never seems to fit into the Lenten mood. Compared to the week before Christmas, the Holy Week before Easter is a tougher sell. The fun ends at the bottom of the Mount Olivet road inside the limits of Jerusalem.
           Unlike most other weeks of the Christian year, something significant does happen during the week after Palm Sunday. During the last three days - Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday - we walk in tandem with Jesus. It is a Holy week because the events and emotions are so different, so set apart from normal experience that the atmosphere of God’s presence imbues every move.
           Maundy Thursday derives its odd title from the Latin word ‘mandatum’ or commandment, the “new commandment that you love one another even as I have loved you.” At night we reenact the Last Supper gathering only 12 disciples around the table. We keep reading the story amidst the shadows of doom (‘tenebrae’) as Jesus prays in Gethsemane with sleepy disciples, and then is betrayed and arrested.
           Good Friday never seems ‘good’ to anyone, except paradoxically that Jesus’ crucifixion liberates us from the pointlessness of death and sin. Holy Saturday is the empty day in which Jesus lies in the tomb and nothing seems to happen. Yet something is happening - who could imagine?