Pastor’s Lenten Blog 19

So, we’re in the midst of Holy Week.  I’ve been a semi-poor example of Lenten sacrifice by not doing this daily; but, on the grace-filled side, if I write one more after this one, then I’ll have averaged one every other day.  However, it’s a good thing that heaven’s rewards are not based on our efforts, but God’s forgiveness; otherwise I’d only make it halfway there!

There’s something about Holy Week that sometimes has me calling it by another name.  It’s not so much that there’s extra work time (some, but not a ton), but there is something of increased stress as a pastor.  But, hey, even when I was out of ministry and working my bartending job Holy Week had an element of increased tension.  Part of it, I think, is a matter of simply living in the spirit of Jesus’ walk during that time.  It was a time of confrontation, intimacy, betrayal, denial, torture, and death in a horrible form.  Holy Week is a time when the best and the worst come out in the human story; the welcoming crowds on Palm Sunday shout “Crucify Him” only days later, close friends end up stabbing him in the back, his followers run away in his toughest time.  That’s tense!

Translating that into the human journey with God, I gotta remember that whatever I do, God loves me.  If I deny Jesus, God loves me.  If I betray Jesus, God loves me.  If I help to put Jesus to death, God loves me.  God loves me, and it’s my job on the human journey, no matter how much I screw up along the way, to live in the Spirit of that Love.  That’s a pretty good thing to do, actually.