Whew! What a Holy Week

I almost missed the Maundy Thursday service. Leaving the comfort of home and returning after dark doesn’t have much appeal anymore. Attending the Good Friday service was even less attractive since the cold front that has jeopardized the spring flowers is not blowing through, but making itself at home on the prairie. Even though the temptation was real, we overcame and, as usual, we were glad we went. Habit is a powerful force – keeps some people from worship and draws others.

I have learned to expect at least one “take home” truth from every worship experience. I never know where the jewel I seek will be found because it is sometimes in the music, the words of a song, some action or thing that captures my eye, but most often the “take home” benefit comes from the preacher’s mouth.

That was the case on Maundy Thursday. The preacher’s thesis was that, unlike every other Christian worship service, Maundy Thursday is for insiders only.

She helped us remember the events on another Thursday that gave us the Last Supper. On that evening Jesus was having a meal with his closest friends whom he had trained to carry on the tasks he had been assigned. No one else was invited, no disinterested onlookers, no adversaries, no one needing healing, no one who wanted to argue.

The invitation to supper read “Insiders Only.” Insiders, even though the group included a betrayer and friends who were so fickle they would desert Jesus when he could have used a little support and encouragement. Like members of other insider groups, the disciples often expected special advantages and choice seats. They sometimes became jealous when outsiders received the attention they wanted and complained when more understanding and courage were expected of insiders. Yet, Jesus wanted to eat his last meal with his insiders. At the most intimate moment of his life, he wanted to spend it with insiders.

I took home from the Maundy Thursday worship a renewed acknowledgement that I am an insider. But when I ask, "What kind of insider am I?" I have to admit some changes are called for and some adjustments are necessary to improve my relationships, both horizontal and vertical.

Then Good Friday came and I went back to church to worship in a most unlikely context. Early in the service, the preacher read a meditation noting that Good Friday is the one holiday that Hallmark ignores. Who wants to be reminded of injustice, suffering, punishment, shame, and hatred? What is the “take home” message in the hearing of Jesus suffering and death?

Although the non-commercialization of a holiday is refreshing, Good Friday 2007 yanks me out of the fantasy world I want; a world where people are nice, love is the only motivator, and the good guys always win. Who can find a way to make a buck reminding customers that they killed the only perfect man who ever lived? Who would dare celebrate?

So for me, the truth of Good Friday is like a baseball thrown at a guy sitting on a seat above a tank of water in a carnival booth. The man sits there, waiting for some kid with a good arm to hit the trigger that dumps him in the cold water.

Good Friday is that kind of shock – sudden, surprising yet certain, and as real as the cold water.

Life is not what it ought to be or could be or what we want to be. Life has a dark side. In the greatest story ever told, the good suffer; the innocent are oppressed, the powerful acquiesce to wrongdoing, the righteous are neglected, and trusted servants enrich themselves from the common purse. Good Friday spotlights unpleasant truths and begs for a redemptive act. .

Insiders know from whence our redemption comes and they look forward!