Holy Week is a lot

The Road goes ever on and on,

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say…

-JRR Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring”

Holy Week is a lot.

Here at St. Elisabeth’s, during this most sacred week of the Christian year, we have services on Palm Sunday and on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and then, finally, on Easter. To attempt to attend every service is a big commitment of time.  But what if we tried to enter into it not as a pious exercise, a spiritual slog, or a “Well, I guess I should…” obligation but as a journey.

Last year, on Friday in Holy Week, we joined our friends from fellow Evanston Deanery parishes for a family-oriented event called “Holy Week Journeying with Jesus”.  (We’re doing it again this year) Children from our parishes and their families moved through the church campus at St. Augustine’s in Wilmette, singing together, praying together, hearing the story of Jesus’s last week and doing activities that corresponded to “stops” along the way.  They shared a meal, they prayed in a garden, they carried the Cross…

The story of Jesus’s last week is like a symphony - layered with themes, with meaning and emotion. From the triumphal highs of Palm Sunday, to the intimate foot washing and sharing of bread and wine at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, to the lonely suffering, pain, and abandonment of Good Friday, and the darkness of the tomb on Holy Saturday before the dawning joys of Easter Day.  The “alot-ness” of Holy Week offer us a kind of pilgrimage or spiritual journey - one that we miss out on if we only attend on Sundays.  (Or only on Easter!)  

The spiritual life isn’t all highs, it isn’t all lows.  It is a journey in which we encounter both.  A journeying, like those kids at St. Augustine’s, with Jesus.  Jesus walks with us every day.  And beckons us to walk with him.  To join his still larger way - in Holy Week, and always.

“The road goes ever on and on…”

Faithfully,

The Rev. Adam Spencer, Rector