Today is the first day of Holy Week. We begin Holy Week with Jesus' triumphant entrance into Jerusalem and we end Holy Week with Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Heaven. But what we focus on in between these two triumphant events is the horrific reality of the cross. All of us have heard the expression “no pain, no gain.” There would be no Christ the King without Christ crucified. There would be no resurrection without death.
Jesus entered Jerusalem as people laid their cloaks and leafy branches down in front of him crying out “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:9-10). A few days later he left Jerusalem on the Way of the Cross beaten and bruised, alone, abandoned by the adoring crowds and his disciples. At Golgotha he was crucified. The adoring crowd became a jeering crowd reviling, abusing and mocking him saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe” (Mark 15:31-32). And there he died.
St Paul ties all the events of Holy Week together in his Epistle to the Philippians that we hear today. “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8). And St Paul exhorts us to “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2: 5).
And so, as we enter into this holiest week of the year, may this this our prayer,
Lord God,
as we enter this Holy Week,
let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus.
Empty us of our pride and selfishness;
draw us close to his cross,
so that as we celebrate his passion and resurrection,
our lives may become models of self-sacrificing love.
We ask this through Christ, our liberator from sin,
who lives with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
AMEN
