Meditation on This Week's Gospel (and the Holy Week Trajectory)

 The readings for Sunday, April 9, 2023:

First Reading: Acts 10:34-43

First Reading (Alt.): Jeremiah 31:1-6

Psalm: Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-4

Second Reading (Alt.): Acts 10:34-43

Gospel: Matthew 28:1-10

Gospel (Alt.): John 20:1-18


Finally we move through Holy Week to Easter Sunday. At last, our Lenten pilgrimage draws to a close.

The stories we hear during Holy Week remind us of how to move from lives that have been reduced to ash back to lives full of resurrection.  What is often lost in the Holy Week stories is the larger story of resurrection.

As you move through the rest of the liturgical year, and as you move among Christian circles, pay attention to which stories of this week we circle back to.  Is it the crucifixion or the empty tomb?  Is it the meal shared together?  Is it the victorious entry into Jerusalem on a colt?  What are the stories that Christianity tells most often?  And more important, why?

My guess is that you'll hear more about the crucifixion than the other elements.  Modern Christianity tends to focus on personal salvation and to see the cross as the source of that salvation.  In one of my seminary classes this week, I heard a fellow student say that without Judas and his betrayal, we wouldn't have had salvation because we wouldn't have had the resurrection.  I would counter that Jesus was on a collision course with the Roman empire and that he would have been killed anyway.  He was crucified, a capital punishment reserved for those who were a threat to the state.  He was on Rome's radar.

I would argue that somewhere through history, Christianity lost the thread of the good news declared by angels.  Jesus is about more than our individual salvation.  Jesus came to save the world, and I think he meant to save our societies more than our souls.

Imagine how our world would be different if we focused on Maundy Thursday, not Good Friday.  This idea isn't mine--I've been reading many theologians saying something similar.  In this essay "The Holy Thursday Revolution,"  Diana Butler Bass asks, "What if the table was the point?"

In fact, we see Jesus move back to tables again and again, throughout his ministry and after his resurrection.  There's something powerful about a meal shared together, something transformative, something vital.  Jesus shows us a ministry of inclusion, and he gives us a way to model it, a way that has proven timeless.

The world cries out for resurrection.  Maundy Thursday shows us how to begin.  Good Friday shows us the risk of continuing the work of Jesus.  Easter promises us that the forces of empire, the systems of domination and death, will not have the last word.  The stories after Easter return us to meals together. The work of transformation awaits.