Favorite Days

It’s funny that this year, one of my favorite times of the year, the NCAA tournament, opens on one of my favorite times of the year as a Christian.

See, today is Thursday of Holy Week, Maundy Thursday if you belong to a more liturgically oriented denomination. And today is the day Christians stop to remember Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, instituting the Lord’s Supper in the middle of the Jewish Passover meal, agonizing and praying in the garden while His best, most trusted friends and followers fell asleep, then being arrested and drug away for a mockery of a trial that would end with Him on a cross at Golgotha. Maundy Thursday and Good Friday—these are dark days.

I grew up in the Baptist church, and because that doctrine is closest to what I believe, that’s the denomination I’m still a member of. But growing up, my family usually attended Holy Week services each day of the week between Palm Sunday and Easter at the United Methodist Church in our small town.  As I’ve gotten older and looked back on those times, visited other church services and studied denominations, I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes in our Baptist fervor to steer away from anything that might be too “liturgical” or “Catholic,” we miss out on the nuances and special symbolism of these days before Easter.

Holy Week starts with Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, heralded as the Messiah, a conquering hero. He cleanses the temple, teaches in the temple, instructs His disciples to make the upper room ready for the Passover, and predicts His coming death. In John 12:27, He even says, “Now My soul is troubled. What should I say—Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour.” He had come to earth as a baby and hit all the milestones children achieve. He’d grown into a man, begun His ministry, performed miracles. And now the time was drawing to a close. He’d been marching toward the cross since His birth. And His sorrow was only hours away. How could He bear it? How could He willingly go?

Maundy Thursday is a somber day. The pomp and circumstance, the purple and scarlet of the Holy Week celebrations are taken away; black drapery and sometimes a crown of thorns replace them.  Scripture readings focus on Christ’s actions and instructions at that first Lord’s Supper and last Passover meal with His disciples, His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are the sorrow before the joy of Easter.

And while we Baptists get all fired up about Easter—and it is the MOST important day on the Christian calendar, because without it, we’d have no hope—but we can’t celebrate Easter without the sorrow, sadness, and horrors of Thursday and Friday.

You don’t get the salvation without the sacrifice.

So today, I urge you to think on these things. Seek to understand Christ’s sacrifice, or at least to wrap your brain around a little bit of it. If you’d like more “Scriptural” thoughts to mull this over with, visit the blog for the mag I edit. I’ve been writing a series of devotional thoughts for Holy Week over there.