Make the Most of Holy Week

March 27, 2015

I love worship. If I could spend the rest of my academic career studying worship, I would. Of course, at divinity school you have to study other things, but I’m most excited for my worship classes.

That being said, I think there is also something to be said about participating in worship, especially during this season.

Next week the Christian tradition is marked as Holy Week as we approach Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I’d encourage you to mark Holy Week faithfully; don’t just jump to Easter! It’s easy for us to skip Holy Week because we don’t like to talk about the dark things of our lives, but this week is precisely where Jesus calls us to go.

You see, in the darkness of Holy Week we realize the importance of Easter. I would encourage you to attend a Holy Week service. There are plenty of opportunities: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and, of course, let it all culminate with Easter Sunday. Allow God to work through the services that you are a part of because God gave everything this week that we mark.

So linger a while in Holy Week just like I challenged you all to linger in Lent. From the loud shouts of Hosanna on Palm Sunday to the “It is finished” on Good Friday, we see the love and grace mingled with blood and tears in the hope of the resurrection to come. It is through these moments of Holy Week that we come close to the heart of God.

Don’t let the darkness of the season keep your eyes from the promise of Easter. Even in Lent there are traces of resurrection, and that can be true in our worship experiences. I encourage you to look at the calendar of your church and find a time where you can worship the God who became like us. But take heart: Jesus is the Word become flesh, and you can’t keep the Word dead for long. Thanks be to God that we have Holy Week and the promise of Easter.

This post originally appeared in the Statesville Record, and was published in The Pulpit & the Paper: A Pastor’s Coming of Age in Newsprint by Robert W. Lee.