By all reckoning, Holy Week deserves its name. Considering all the events in human history, the week called Holy week is undoubtedly the most sacred of all weeks and the most unique. The week celebrates the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, the God-Made-Man, and the founder of Christianity. While there are heroic figures in human history, none has matched the sacredness, humility and aura and the achievement wrought by Jesus Christ.  Not only did he identified completely with human beings, but he also transformed our human nature to state we could never imagine.  By becoming like us in all things, he opened the gate for us to share in his divine nature and gave us unparallel access to the divine. Remember, He is God and chose to become man, so that he could lead us out of our misery to a life everlasting. Yes, the salvation of humanity could have been accomplished some other ways,  but those other ways would have become today, just heroic deeds of great men, not the Christ-event  that wrought our salvation. So, it is worthwhile to commemorate the week of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection.

The week begins with the  triumphant entry into Jerusalem. What makes this event special when he had gone up to Jerusalem many times in the past?  Without announcing it, with any publicity or poster blizzard. He rode in triumph into his city and the people recognized him as the long-awaited messiah. While he had shun all publicity in the past, now, he did not bother , light cannot be hidden and the moment, the Kairos moment had come, and he must embrace his fate. The people shouted hosanna but soon abandoned him and went about their daily life.  But what an afront the elite and power monger people of the city must have thought to themselves, He dared to enter our city and so, they planned his exit, the contort their plan to permanently get rid of him. But the Messiah has other plans, he must set his Church on solid footing.

On the night before he was put to death, he gathered his apostles and ate the Passover with them and then did something else,  he gave them his body and share a new cup with them, the cup of the new covenant. They must have wondered what their master was doing. It will take them a while before they understood what he had told them before “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you.” Now, the announced to them what he was doing: “This is the cup of the new covenant, I will not drink of it again until I enter my kingdom.” Is this a kind of joke? Why prepare a table for us and ask us to do it in memory of you? Where are you going? What are you talking about? Unperceiving, it had not entered their mind because no mortal do these kind of things.

Soon, the different between the Master and the disciples began to unfold, one sold him off, like his forebear did to Joseph; the other denied knowing him after sharing exotic moments with him in choice places. He knew he was alone, but also not alone because God was with him, and he is in God. And so, began his last journey on earth. The authority seized  him with clubs and sticks, he was bitten and spat upon. He was judged and condemned. They had not pit on him, except some helpless women. The law of the land even failed him, and the men of means refused to speak for him. They crucified him between two criminals and one, full of sorrow for himself and pit of this man of sorrow, begged to be forgiven and like that, the gates of paradise were thrown open for him, another prodigal man had come home. But the other derided him and as scripture says, he was numbered with the condemned! Right there in the cross, looking as us, he pitted us and gave us him mother to nurse us back to health, he forgave us,  he prayed for us, even as he yearn for our submission and love. But he had to die, and he willingly gave up his spirit.

The end had come, or so they thought, but as he taught us “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Hence, while men slept, incapacitated by the limits of our existence, the Lord of life rose from the dead. The gates of the netherworld burst open , new life flooded the world  and glory of God shone anew. It is a new world, a world redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb.  This is our story, it is about us, it is our life. So, during this Holy week, let us prayerfully accompany the Lord, share in his suffering, live the moment with him and be transformed, so that we too can rise to new life.