Peter EspeutFOR TRADITIONAL Christians, this week is the holiest in the year; indeed it is called Holy Week. We have spent the previous forty days (of the Lenten season) preparing for it.
It begins with "Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion" (Sunday gone) where we commemorated Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem. People lined the streets shouting "Hosanna" and waving green branches to welcome Him, the same people who only a few days later cried "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" And so we traditional Christians prepare palm branches and march in procession singing hymns like "Enter into Jerusalem". Our march through the streets of Ewarton, St. Catherine, last Sunday was good Christian witness!
Traditional Christian practice spreads out the events leading up to the death of Jesus over several days. Today is called 'Spy Wednesday', the day commemorating when Judas, Jesus' betrayer, went to the Chief Priests and accepted 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus with a kiss.
JEWISH PASSOVER
Tomorrow is called 'Holy Thursday' when we hold the memorial of Jesus' Last Supper with his followers before his death. The context was the Jewish Passover meal commemorating God's actions liberating Moses and the Hebrews from Slavery in Egypt and from the Angel of Death. There and then Jesus instituted the Eucharistic meal the Christian Passover which, combined with the events of the following day, liberated the human race from slavery to sin, and death! Indeed every year the date of Holy Week celebrations follows the movable date of the Jewish Passover. On that first Holy Thursday night Jesus washed the feet of his disciples as an example of the sort of service leaders are to perform, and all around the world tomorrow, church leaders will wash the feet of members of their congregations.
WHIPPED
And then there is the Friday we call 'Good' when Jesus was tried, condemned, whipped, and forced to carry His cross to the hill (Golgotha) where He was crucified; after spending three hours on the cross, suspended between earth and heaven, Jesus died. Many churches gather at noon, about the time Jesus was crucified, and spend the next three hours reflecting on the meaning of these gruesome events. Some churches enact the Passion of Christ with a procession complete with cross-carrying.
This year we are treated to Mel Gibson's realistic portrayal of the Passion of Christ (Passion is from the Greek 'Pascho' which means "I suffer") with all the blood and gore. It helps, I think, to get the point across that those events were not just a Friday morning stroll.
For traditional Christians, the events of Holy Thursday and Good Friday constitute the establishment of a new Covenant between God and humanity, not in the blood of rams and bullocks, but written in the blood of the Son of God himself. Every time we share the Eucharist repeating the sacred actions of Jesus in taking bread and wine (He said "Do this") we renew that sacred covenant in His blood.
Holy Saturday, when Jesus lay in the tomb, is spent quietly. This is why having Carnival festivities at this time is so jarring, and does violence to Christian sensibilities. No country that seriously celebrates Carnival would do that. We who are Carnival copycats have not copied its spirit; only its flesh.
RESURRECTION AND
GLORIFICATION
And then on Holy Saturday night Easter Eve the holiest night of the year there is a full celebration of the redemption and salvation bought for us by Jesus with his own blood, and which culminated in his Resurrec-tion and glorification. The night is rich in Holy Scripture as the full scope of Salvation History from Adam and Eve to the Exodus to the Babylonian captivity to Jesus is proclaimed. It is also rich in the symbolism of fire and light and water, and thousands of baptisms will take place on Saturday night at the Easter Vigil.
And then there is Easter Sunday itself, where newness and new beginnings are celebrated.
All these religious celebrations of Holy Week are profoundly Christian, and some go back to the early Christian community. Nevertheless, this does not stop certain fringe groups from claiming that Easter is pagan in origin and substance, as they seek to legitimise their own denomination and to claim that the rest of Christendom is false.
Through Christ, God has entered into a new covenant, a new contract, with humanity. God did not take the old Covenant and just add a few new clauses; the Covenant in the Blood of Jesus is utterly new, and requires a new mind and a new heart. In Paul's letters we read of the Judaizers well-meaning Jewish Christians who wanted to retain some of the old ways and old laws which were part of the old Covenant.
SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS
They are still around, and they usually don't celebrate Easter. The Seventh-Day Adventists may be the best known, but the Armstrong Church of my colleague Ian Boyne has tremendous access to the media.
I don't believe that the detractors of Easter will interfere with the enthusiastic celebration of Holy Week and Easter Week and the Easter Season we will soon enter, by Children of the New Covenant. It's a wonderful time of year!
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and an ordained deacon of the Roman Catholic Church serving in the St. Catherine communities of Guys Hill and Ewarton.
