Sixth Week of Lent 2021 (March 28, Palm Sunday)
Sister Elise Saggau
We are already a week into spring. Early signs are appearing. We may not even be able to see them yet, but they are there. Life is starting to awaken in the still frozen soil. Something is calling all living things to wake up, to begin again, to move towards the sun. Northern people accompany nature on a journey into a long winter rest. It may seem almost death-like—cold and rigid. Now, as the days get longer and deep frosts begin to lose their grip on the earth, the human spirit also begins to stir. With nature, it turns hopefully toward the increasing light and warmth.
The coronavirus has given us a new experience of what it means to lie low for the sake of life. Our sheltering, our social isolation, was difficult and lonely. It stretched us as far as we could go and sometimes beyond that point. Nevertheless, it was also a life-giving protection, much like a caterpillar’s cocoon. Now we are beginning to emerge from our winter/COVID-19/hibernation mode. We are starting to break out of our cocoons where we have been safe. During this time though something has been happening to us. Now, we are coming forth with a new appreciation of what it means to live in the light. It is almost as though we had forgotten what it was like to be truly alive, to exercise freedom of movement, to feel like liberated social beings. Now a resurrection is happening. Now we are learning, once again, to fly.
There is a line from Ezechiel in the Hebrew Scriptures: The Lord says: “My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them” (Ez. 37:12). In that same passage, Ezechiel describes how God made dead dry bones arise and take on flesh, inspirited them, and made them once more a living people of God. Hopefully, our experience of COVID-19, as devastating as it is, has opened up for us a new appreciation for life—the kind of life that comes after a kind of death. This is a powerful metaphor for what we celebrate during Holy Week and Easter.
As we enter into the observances of the Holy Week, we keep in mind what Christ went through. We imagine his feelings of profound rejection, how he suffered fear and underwent the physical pain of torture. We picture his unjust execution, his actually undergoing death as a human being. And finally, we celebrate our belief in his rising to new life in an unspeakable and amazing victory over sin and death. We share in these experiences as members of the worshipping community, and we are invited to discover in these experiences a place of our own. Where do I find myself in what Christ did, in what he went through?
How we answer such a question provides for us a path through our own personal poverty, our own injuries, our own fear, our own pain, our own sinfulness, our own dying. What Christ did proclaims in no uncertain terms that God’s love and care for us knows no bounds and can be relied on no matter how difficult things become. What Christ did shouts out to us that death is not the last word—that the story goes on. We live by faith and not by sight. What God has in store for us, we cannot see, we cannot yet even imagine. But following Christ through thick and thin, walking the walk with him, loving the neighbor and the enemy with him, leads us unfailingly to LIFE. This is the message of Holy Week and Easter. Now it is our turn to spread the good news!
