I remember one Holy Week when I was a teenager. My mum is a priest and I used to play the piano at church so we were both very involved in the services of Holy Week. We’d done Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and a vigil service on Holy Saturday evening - only to return home that night and find water coming through the lounge ceiling. My dad (who is not so into church) would normally deal with such things. However, he was away in the Isle of Man visiting my Grandma. After frantic phone calls to him and a visit from a helpful friend, we managed to drain the leaking water tank, turn the water off and eliminate the immediate risk of the ceiling falling in. But we were without heating or hot water and so Easter Sunday morning was spent not in church but at home waiting for a very expensive emergency plumber. We had journeyed with Jesus from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, to the Upper Room and then to the cross, but we never made it to the joy of the resurrection. We were stuck at the emptiness of Holy Saturday.
Then there was Holy Week at theological College in Mirfield. We had four Offices each day (Morning Prayer, Midday Prayer, Evening Prayer and Night Prayer) as well as the Holy Week liturgies. We were in silence from Maundy Thursday evening until Easter Day, when our worship began at about 4.30am and finished at about 8 am, followed by prosecco and chocolate in the church grounds. The journey that week was intense but awesome – literally. Words can’t do it justice. And, of course, the nature of theological college meant we’d done that journey as an enclosed community together, with none of the distractions of the outside world.
The year after was my first Holy Week in the parish after ordination. Like this year, schools were in right up until Maundy Thursday and so there was a funny mix throughout the week of celebrating Easter with our schools when we were still at Maundy Thursday in church. And, of course, I was experiencing everything for the first time as an ordained person: washing feet on Maundy Thursday, carrying the paschal candle and singing the exultet as a deacon on Holy Saturday. After the experience of the previous year there were some frustrations: the organist practicing ‘Thine be the glory’ for Easter Day just a few minutes after we’d finished the Good Friday liturgy rather spoilt the mood! But it was, and has been ever since, a huge privilege to lead people on that journey through the week.
Those are the most memorable Holy Weeks I’ve experienced. There have been many more that, although slightly less memorable, are still very important. But each of these examples I’ve given, in their own way, demonstrate the importance of the journey that we go on during Holy Week.
All of us are invited to take part in this journey during Holy Week this year and I encourage you to do so as fully as you can. Jesus told his disciples that they must take up their cross and follow him. We too, must take up our cross; we should not, if we can possibly help it, move straight from the Hosannas of Palm Sunday to the Alleluias of Easter Day without first walking the way of the cross.
So, my friends, come with us on the journey. It is not an easy journey to make but it is so so worth it. We will begin on Palm Sunday with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem as we shout ‘Hosanna’. On Maundy Thursday we will move through the footwashing and the Last Supper to keep watch in the Garden of Gethsemane. On Good Friday we will go with Jesus to the cross and then we will wait in the emptiness of Holy Saturday before we finally reach the triumph of Easter Day. And then, how great our rejoicing will be when we proclaim once again that Jesus Christ is risen. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
