Jesus is going to die on Friday.
That's what I keep thinking.
You can go through twenty-two Holy Weeks, and yet each time Palm Sunday comes around you grapple with a gaping, gasping, afresh realization: Jesus is going to die on Friday.
I think about it again and my heart slips into my lungs, making it hard to breathe. It's the beginning of Holy Week, which tends to feel both reverent and loose — as if I'm teetering on the edge of a very large cliff, staring down at my miseries and burdens, all the while knowing the Saviour of the world is deep in the midst of saving me.
We were handed his execution date a long time ago. We break bread and remember him, but this week he's dying all over again. We know Sunday is coming and that there is hope, but Friday comes first and my mourning has already begun.
I mourn my faithlessness.
I mourn my pride.
I mourn my denial of him -- and not just three times like his dear friend, Peter -- but more, so many more. He is my Lord and my Saviour and there are innumerable times where I have cast him aside. Holy Week brings that all back to me.
It is here, during these days, where I am most aware of how utterly weak my fickle human flesh is.
I could've been the girl to sing hosanna and five days later yell crucify him. I could've waved a branch like a flag in praise of him, only to turn my back when the nighttime came. I could've loved him on Palm Sunday but left him on Friday along with all of his friends.
I am a runner. I get scared when times get hard. I deny, I betray — and most certainly I run away. And yet what causes me the most grief is the understanding that he knows all of this, and still chooses to have nails pummelled into the beautiful hands which formed me.
Jesus is going to die on Friday.
For a girl he loves madly, a girl who doesn't deserve him. And yet he wants me, and suffers for me, and forgives me over and over again.
I watched the sun set last night and thought, "this is God in all his glory." On Friday he'll die, and this will be God in all his glory.
On Sunday he'll rise again. And this will indeed be God in all his glory.
I realize how desperately I love him. And I pray I'll love him even more.
"To make of his story something that could neither startle, nor shock, nor terrify, nor excite, nor inspire a living soul is to crucify the Son of God afresh." -- Dorothy Sayers