Reflections for Holy Week
On Holy Week & Being Misunderstood
It’s Holy Week. And Spring Break here in my house.
Husband is traveling for work. The kids and I are coming up with adventures. Yesterday, the beach and boardwalk with friends. Monday? I made them pull weeds in the backyard. (It’s not spring break if you don’t do yard work. Who's with me?)
We have some traditions in our house around the week leading up to Easter. Besides making Holy Week services a priority (Maundy Thursday dinner, Good Friday service at noon, Easter Vigil Saturday night), we eat rice and beans for lunch and dinner leading up to Easter. We’ll start today and we’ll talk about how this simple meal is one eaten around the world in various forms. We’ll talk about how many families struggle to put more than this on the table. We’ll think about what it means to walk through this week preparing ourselves for the big story of Jesus. We’ll talk about how much we’re going to feast and celebrate on Sunday (and the 50 days following!) and how you have to walk through Jesus’ death to understand the power of his resurrection. Metaphors abound in Holy Week, right?
As we walk these days toward Good Friday I’ve been thinking a lot about Palm Sunday, how Jesus enters Jerusalem, not on a war horse, but on a donkey. Not (as I learned in my pastor's excellent sermon this past Sunday) from the north of the city, from which all the great conquerors would have arrived to the adulation of the people, but up from the southeast quadrant, where the refuse of the town flowed and pooled. Jesus came from the bottom, from the place of the marginalized.
For a brief moment, he was lauded and welcomed with palm branches, in hopes that he would be the patriotic hero the people of Jerusalem were waiting for. Of course, he didn’t come as a war hero; he came as the Prince of Peace. That’s why he weeps over the city. That’s why he enters on a donkey. “If you had known the things that make for peace, “ he says, gazing over the city.
He is deeply misunderstood. One of the things I’ve learned most about myself in the past year of counseling has been how one of the driving factors of my experience in the world is the desire to be understood. It’s why I write. It’s why I value stories, why I’m driven to keep turning my thoughts and motives over and over in my mind. And when I am misunderstood, when I am not fully known, that's when I am most hurt.
And here is Jesus, on his way to his greatest life task. His purpose. And the people don’t understand what he’s doing. They may never.
That’s what I’ll be meditating on this week. It’s not too spectacular of a thought, I suppose. But it’s simple enough to focus my attention on in the midst of park playdates and Ace’s therapies and beans and rice.
How is Jesus’ Way of Peace misunderstood? And how can I begin to live into that Way?
How I spent World Down Syndrome Day
Last Wednesday was World Down Syndrome Day! I spent the day celebrating my littlest man in three big ways:
1. The release of The Lucky Few Podcast! If you haven't listened yet, you can find it here, and wherever you listen to your podcasts.
2. I published a piece in The Washington Post about Down syndrome, abortion, and prenatal testing. You know, all the super easy stuff to talk about.
3. My mom and I got matching tattoos to celebrate Ace and how lucky we are to be part of the Down syndrome community. Here's an article about #theluckyfewtattoo phenomenon.
Poem for your own meditation this week
Last year I wrote a poem for our church's Good Friday service. It's available on the blog for individual or church use. Find it here.
The most inward and loving of all,
he came forth like a new beginning,
the brown-robed brother of your nightingales,
with his wonder and goodwill
and delight in Earth . . .
-Ranier Marie Rilke
Hope your Holy Week is rich and full and that you are present for all of it. Love, Micha