This is the week we call Holy. For more than 30 years, it was the most important week of the year for me. From the moment Christmas was over, even before Epiphany and the putting away of Christmas decorations, I was thinking about Holy Week and how I could draw people into its dram and significance for their lives.
I need to live in this week with all my heart and senses. I have to see and touch the olive trees in Gethsemane where Jesus prayed, to stand near the cross on Golgotha and hear the hammer as it pounds the nails into Jesus wrists. I need to be close enough to smell the fear of the disciples and stench of thousands of gallons of blood flowing from the altar in the temple at Passover, I strain to hear the singing of “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday and the angry cries of “Crucify” five days later. I long to taste the bread and wine in the Upper Room on that Thursday night and share the bitterness of the horror and despair in the mouths of the women at the cross.
Every week during Lent, the church offered a brief service in the church or in a home in the evening. There we sang, prayed and shared Holy Communion. We remembered. In many places where I served, the ministerium offered a weekly service and luncheon with each church offering its special dish to eat and its pastor to preach. The fellowship of Christians from many traditions blessed us and reminded us we were not alone in our faith.
I miss these times of corporate worship, which supplemented our Sunday times together. Those times helped me to focus the rest of the week on my personal journey to the cross. Now that I have retired and have not found a midweek service, I have struggled to maintain my personal focus. God and I need to talk more about that failing of mine.
In this, my fourth Lenten season in retirement, I am realizing the depth of my grief at not leading a congregation through this season. I appreciate every opportunity Lane gives me to participate through preaching, praying celebrating at the Lord’s Table and creating some of the special services and liturgies. But my soul and heart are broken because I miss planning and walking with my folks through the entirety of Lent, especially Holy Week so much.
In my years as a pastor, I cried because so many people left church on Palm Sunday and did not return until Easter. How do we celebrate the overflowing joy of Easter if we do not go to Jerusalem in our hearts and remember, if we do not sit at the table and eat and drink together, pray and struggle with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, see his pain infused with love for us on the cross, and feel the grief and loss at the finality of that stone-sealed tomb?
I’m crying this year for the first time as the magnitude of my loss because of retirement overwhelms me. The first year I retired, there was a novelty to and a respite I appreciated. The second year, Lent and Easter came in the midst of Mom’s dying and death. Last year, I was numb from depression and only vaguely remember the season at all.
This year, this Holy Week, I feel alive again. I feel into the depths of my being and I am glad, even though this week I am filled with grief and pain in every fiber of my being. I miss leading Holy Week services. I miss opening the path of the passion for people I have come to love. I miss the drama and pageantry, I miss the hours of creative planning, the fellowship of working with a team of singers, musicians, and readers as we carry out the ministry of worship. There are many tasks in pastoral ministry I do not miss, but being on the sidelines of Holy Week breaks my heart. In ways I do not fully understand and struggle to articulate, the loss of this role, this purpose, grieves me more than the loss of my family. That may sound callous or crazy, but it is my truth.
I am working hard this week to put myself into Holy Week, so that I can once again embrace both the Passion and the Resurrection. Sunday night I watched “The Cotton Patch Gospel,” a musical based on the “Cotton Patch Gospels” written by Clarence Jordan, who set the story of Jesus in the south in the 1950’ and ‘60’s. Tuesday night, I invited a friend to watch it with me and share the wonderful music of Harry Chapin. Before Saturday, I’ll watch “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Godspell,’ and the last two hours of “Jesus of Nazareth,” a mini-series from the 70’s with Ann Bancroft, Rod Steiger, and Ernest Borgnine, and many other stars. I’ve watched this almost every Holy Week for over 40 years.
I am moved by the music in many of the movies. This year the song that is speaking to me most is “Gethsemane” sung by Ted Neely in “Jesus Christ Superstar.” As Jesus wrestle with his desire to live and his call to die, I am confronted by my own struggles to discern and yield to God’s call at this point in my life. How often, unlike Jesus, do I resist and go my own way?
I’ve also been listening to my favorite Holy Week songs from the classic “The Holy City” to more contemporary singers like Michael Card, Twila Paris, and Ray Boltz (at least they were contemporary 10-20 years ago). Music speaks to me in ways that words alone cannot. I often find myself caught up in worship as I sing along.
I’ll continue my own journey by reading the passion story in Matthew and/or Luke. I will pray and cry and find myself in various places with different characters in the story. I will allow grief to seep into my spirit and take hold. I will let myself ache for the life I lived and give thanks for the privilege I had for so many years to lead and walk with people on their faith journeys. I need to be quiet and wait, never my strong suit, and let sadness have its time and space. I need to live my Good Friday completely, refusing to numb the experience just as Jesus refused the wine offered to him.
Because of my faith in the truth of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection I can embrace this grief. Only if I allow myself to grieve the dreams and realities that are no more, to die to the life I loved, will there be any opportunity to fully experience the next chapter of my life. Only when grief has worked its way through me will I be raised to life again. I cling to my belief that because Jesus is alive now forever, that God is not finished with me.
You see, it’s Friday now. But Sunday’s coming. And I have hope.