This Holy Week

Every year I'm inspired to fast for the Triduum. Like totally, not eat at all sort of fast. From Thursday until Sunday morning, which is the shorter version. This kind of strict ritual observance has always appealed to me before reality sets it.

Because reality does set in and I remember I'm a pastor. While I'm sure many more righteous than I leaders of churches have fasted for that period, if I showed up on Sunday morning having not eaten since Thursday, someone would die. At the very best, I'd be fired after I yelled a lot then collapsed into a sobbing mess on the floor. Knowing yourself is a good thing.

Still, I have a deep love for this week, for these coming days when we tell stories of trial and death. I won't lead a Good Friday service, but I will sit in one, hearing the brutal stories from these days. We read them in worship this past week, but that's different for me, then hearing them when I can just sit and savor the story. I know savor sounds like the wrong word.

For me, though, it's not.

This story is visceral. It's blood, sweat, and tears. It's unimaginable pain. It's heartrending grief that causes a different sort of pain. It's all the horrible stuff wrapped into not that many hours at all. We retell it year after year after year. And I love it.

God bless these days when we look horrible dead in the eye.
God bless these days when we lean into the pain and grief.
God bless these days when we don't shy away from the worst things imaginable.
God bless these days when, for once, we don't sweep anything under the rug.

We tell our stories of betrayal, of murder, of denial, of death. We put the horrible front and center. We insist on doing so every single year. And maybe, just maybe this can give space to name the horrible in the rest of the year. Maybe this time for grieving can give us time to grieve later on. Maybe putting the horrible right out there for everyone to see means we don't hide so much later on.

And maybe, just maybe, what gives me permission to savor this story so deeply, so thoroughly is knowing we haven't reached the end of the story yet. So I will wait as the worst thing unfolds. I will wait with the load of uncertainty. I will wait as I have waited before and will again.

Because my hope is that this deeply forms my being to anticipate that in the worst thing possible, God is still working, still waiting, still doing something new. The horrible is not forever.

And God, be with us in the waiting.