One of the astounding things about us humans is how we can take something as incomparably beautiful as life and mess it up. Holy Week stands both as a reminder of that ability and as a remedy for it. Despite all the tragedy of Holy Week the message of this time is a message of life, not of death. It offers us something about life for eternity and something for life right now. The idea of living forever is one that excites us as well as frightens us. It reminds me of the story of the priest who was giving a sermon and at the end he asked: “Now this morning I want all of you who want to go to heaven to stand up.” The
whole congregation stood up, except for one young man in the last pew who remained seated. After Mass the priest stopped the man and asked: “When I asked everyone who wanted to go to heaven this morning to stand up, you remained seated. Don’t you want to go to heaven?” The man replied: “Oh sure, I want to go to heaven. I thought all of you were leaving this morning!” We like the idea of living forever, even though we may be in no hurry to get started. We can sabotage the notion of eternal life with our fear. The reason Jesus was not afraid to give his life was because he recognized that it was given to him. If you and I could live our lives as gifts, imagine how free we would be! We would be free of so much worry. We would know that life is greater than any of its parts. So the loss of any part of life, even something as precious as our ability to see or hear or talk or walk, would not crush us because we would know that the gift of life is greater than the loss of life.
If we could live life as a gift, we would be free of so much that depresses us. We would be able to celebrate who we are and what we have and not mourn who we are not and what we don’t have. If we could live life as a gift we would be free of so much envy and bitterness and jealousy. Jesus calls us out of the holes of depression we dig for ourselves. He tears apart the boxes of envy and jealousy we have confined ourselves in. Humanly there is only one enemy to life and that’s death. Jesus taught us in that first Holy Week that not even death was an enemy, because he had conquered death and he won’t let us stay dead. To accept life as a gift is to accept life the way Jesus accepted it. It is also to let go of life the way Jesus let go of it. Living life as a gift we learn to see life the way Jesus saw it. We learn to live life the way Jesus lived it. And living and seeing life the way Jesus saw it is to live forever. That’s good news! That is life to the fullest! That is life worth celebrating! That is the message and promise of Holy Week! Don’t let Holy Week slip by unnoticed! Make this a truly special time, a really important part of your preparation to experience all of the happiness of Easter! Let’s learn the true meaning of life again, the presence of inner joy again, the reality of love again! Love is all God is. Love is all we need, or need to share. It’s all there in Holy Week. It’s all there on the Cross!