holy week

I've been trying to think of something profound to write about Holy Week since before Palm Sunday. And I don't have much. In Plan B Anne Lamott writes: I don't have the right personality for Good Friday, for the crucifixion: I'd like to skip ahead to the resurrection. In fact, I'd like to skip ahead to the resurrection vision of one of the kids in our Sunday school, who drew a picture of the Easter Bunny outside the tomb: everlasting life, and a basket full of chocolates. Now you're talking.

She captures some of my feeling. I don't have the temperment for Good Friday. I don't know what to do with the violence, the sudden changes in people's attitudes, the confusing and disconnected feeling of some of the passion week stories. But there are themes there that I obsess about year-round: lament and sadness, even when there is hope, the incarnation, absolute love.

I guess I'm intimidated by the extremity of Holy Week. The dispair, the betrayal, the cruelty all seem too much. And the astounding hope is equally inconceiveable. I have a hard time comprehending the momentousness of the events we are remembering. So perhaps my inability to say much says something about the weight of the week. Of Christ's sacrifice and of His astonishing ressurection. Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!