Holy week... The most important seven days in the history of man... Although the exact sequence of events is not always clear to us, we can discern, even now, the straight lines of divine order... Sunday: The garments in the dust - the Hosannahs as the prelude to the "Crucify."... Monday: Sermons with the urgent note of finality - the withered fig tree - Caesar's coin... Tuesday: The terrifying wrath of the Lamb over institutionalized and personal sin among the Scribes and Pharisees - the fire and color of His last sermon to the city and the world - the sureness of justice and the coming of judgment... Night and prayer in the light of the Easter moon on the Mount of Olives...
Wednesday is silent... If anything happened, the holy writers have drawn the veil... Everything that God could say before the Upper Room had been said... It was man's turn now... Perhaps there were quiet words in a corner of the Garden, both to His children who would flee and to His Father who would stay... Wednesday was His... The heart of that mad, crowded Holy Week was quiet... Tomorrow the soliders would come, and Friday there would be God's great signature in the sky... Thursday and Friday would belong to time and eternity, but Wednesday was of heaven alone...
Silent Wednesday... If our Lord needed it, how much more we whose life is the story of the Hosannah and the Crucify... Time for prayer, for adoration... Time to call the soul into the inner court and the Garden... In our crowded world we are lonely because we are never alone... No time to go where prayer is the only sound and God is the only light... We need more silent Wednesdays... In the glory of the Cross above our dust our silence can become purging and peace... God speaks most clearly to the heart that is silent before Him... [The Pilgrim, pp. 27, 28]
It was indeed a week of cosmic significance. We tend to think that it was all about us, our sin, and our redemption. It was, of course, but not only about that. The Evil One was about to be defeated, and something would happen to the relationship between God and His people, about whom Isaiah wrote: (43:1) “But now thus says the Lord,
ReplyDeletehe who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.’”
We hear it in the cursing of the Fig Tree, and we hear it in the shouting of the mob:
An ancient Hebrew prayer called “Avinu Malkeinu (אבינו מלכנו)”, “Our Father, Our King” is recited from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. There is something so familiar in the first line, “Our Father, Our King, we have no King but You.”
Indeed He was afflicted.
Peace and Joy,
George A. Marquart
To you too, Mr. Marquart! Blessed Triduum and Resurrection!
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