A Very Holy Week
Mark Rodgers and Kate Perko reflect on the different religious observances occuring this month, and how it serves as a reminder to us to love and humbly serve our neighbors.
This past Sunday, many Christians celebrated Palm Sunday, the day marking Jesus’ arrival as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. This day specifically kicks off Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, where Christians remember Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection.
It is also a Holy Week for the other Abrahamic faiths. This past weekend, our Jewish friends celebrated Purim, a festival commemorating the salvation of the Jewish people being saved from annihilation by King Xerxes in the ancient Persian empire. The inaugural Purim celebration is recounted in the Book of Esther:
20 And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year, 22 as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor. (Esther 9: 20-22, ESV).
For the Islamic faith, this time also marks Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. It commemorates the month when Muslims believe the prophet Muhammed was given the first revelation of the Quran. During this time, Muslims fast during the daylight hours and strive to avoid any impure thoughts or behaviors.
For all three faiths, this season marks a period of introspection and reflection. For the 40 days before Easter Sunday, many Christians who follow the “liturgical calendar” participate in Lent, a time devoted to fasting from certain luxuries, to imitate Jesus Christ’s sacrifice when he journeyed into the wilderness. While it occurs later this year, Passover is similarly a time for those who practice the Jewish faith to reflect on God’s faithfulness and deliverance from slavery and through the wilderness.
These sacred times set apart holy seasons reflect the rhythms of work and rest God established when creating the earth, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation” (Genesis 2:3a, ESV).” In the Old Testament, God also established festivals, feasts, and seasons of celebration. For example, in Leviticus, we read about Jubilee:
11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field. (Lev 25:11-12)
Why did God command his people to observe the Sabbath or write the practice of specific festivals and feasts into the Jewish law? Jesus tells us, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27, ESV). As our Creator, God knew we would need not only to be reminded but also commanded and lawfully required to rest and celebrate.
Whether you engage in a religious practice or not, there are reasons to step away from our usual “business” and create time to celebrate anniversaries and holidays, enjoy annual trips to the family beach house, or have reunions on campus with our college friends. Why? It brings us back to the love, the marriage vows, the traditions, the places, and the memories that give us meaning.
Holy Week brings us back to the heart of God.
It is a good and human thing to set aside time for both celebration and reflection, and this Holy Week, and other sacred religious times allow us to experience both. We see this in the fasting of Ramadan, which ends with the celebration of Eid-al Fitr. And our Christian colleagues experience Good Friday's sorrow, followed by Easter Sunday's celebration.
A lesser-known commemoration for most this week is Maundy Thursday, the day many Christians commemorate the Last Supper of Jesus with the disciples and the Washing of the Feet. We are rightly humbled by the picture of the God of Heaven, a wash rag around his waist, kneeling at and washing the feet of the disciples—an image that challenges us all to live differently in our broken world.
Such humility and service modeled by Christ is referenced in Paul’s letter to the Philippians:
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,[b] 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,[c] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6b-8).
Mark was blessed to see this Christ-like service of foot-washing in person when he and his wife, Leanne, were in Egypt five years ago. During this trip, they spent time with Mama Maggie, often referred to as the Mother Teresa of Cairo. She washes the feet of the children in “garbage city” who come to her facility for education and care. She washed Mark and Leanne’s feet, and they say it was a humbling experience.
A picture captured from Mark’s visit of Mama Maggie washing feet
When the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob washes our feet, can we do any less for the people around us? Holy Week is a time to reflect not just on God and our relationship to Him but also on our relationship with our neighbors. Each of the Abrahamic faiths has teachings that reflect the Golden Rule. In his book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis called this the “Tao.”
So this Holy Week, be challenged by that “picture” and choose to live with a love for your neighbors that embodies a radical “posture” of humble service. There is possibly no better way than this to share and show the love of God with them.