The Great
Week and the Human Heart The Great Week
and the Human Heart The Great Week and
the Human Heart

The Great Week and the Human Heart

In many of the Christian churches around the world this Sunday, the congregation will hear the ancient account of the main events of the final week of Christ’s life.  This most dramatic period of 5 days is known (especially in Eastern Christianity) as The Great Week or Holy Week (in the Western Church).  Sunday is known as “Passion Sunday,” named after the Latin word for “suffering,” because Jesus’ torture and death on the Friday are at the centre of the gospel we hear (it is called “The Passion Narrative”).  We meet a number of characters as the plot of Holy Week unfolds.

What I hope to do in this weekend’s reflection is cast one eye on the Passion narrative and one eye on my own life. In addition to the physical partial sight that comes with literally having only one eye, I suspect I also have several spiritual blind spots which the Passion narrative can help identify.  I therefore invite anyone who is reading this Friday Thought to join me, if they so wish, in prayerful consideration of their own life when seen in the light of the experiences of some of the characters in the Passion story.  I offer these few words, acutely aware that religion and religious people can sometimes be unhelpfully harsh, negative and judgmental.  I believe that it is also equally unhelpful to see every challenge directed towards a person as a potentially negative, traumatic experience.  Trading sanctimonious blanket condemnation for indifference to wrongdoing is not really much of a cultural improvement.  This reflection is not offered, therefore, so that I or anyone else will feel bad, but more as a reminder to myself (and anyone who agrees with anything I say) of the human need to take responsibility for our faults so that we can move forward better for our own sake and for the sake of those we have in our lives.

So, am I one of life’s Pharisees?  This is for anyone reading who is religious or, if not religious, who rarely thinks they are wrong!  Many Pharisees were austere, religious men, often narrow in their interpretations of God’s love, but absolutely convinced of their own correctness and goodness and, when it came to Jesus, convinced that “One man should die for the people!”  So, am I convinced that my way of looking at God and the world, that my opinions on things, are always right?  Do I have a utilitarian approach to ethical situations, quite happy to throw one person or a minority of people under the bus so that a larger number will benefit?  Do I think that one person should be labelled or have their reputation ruined (like Jesus) rather than all that I hold sacred and precious be questioned or jeopardised?

Perhaps the way I go about living my life reveals that I am a bit of a Pontius Pilate?  The Roman Governor was always thinking about the dignity of high office and the preservation of law and order in a country and historical epoch of simmering unrest.  He knew that Christ was innocent, but he feared that trouble would follow if he did not give the people what they wanted.  He didn’t really care about the mob, of course, but was thinking about his own job, reputation and the Emperor’s potential reaction in Rome.  Many of us know what to do, but how many of us do it because other things are more important to us?  Am I Pilate, sacrificing truth and justice for my career and prestige, or for what other people might think of me, especially those above who can give me a leg-up in life?

Am I Judas Iscariot?  Untrustworthy?  A betrayer of friends?  A person whose words and smile are a violation of those who trust in me?  A person whose friendships and relationships spin elaborate lies which require unceasing vigilance to maintain?  Or perhaps I am Peter? Weak, cowardly, all too flawed in my human nature?  At least Peter’s life was in jeopardy when he lost his nerve!  Am I weak or cowardly in less demanding circumstances than the ones Peter faced?  At least Peter shed tears over his denials!  Do I?  And Peter also had enough goodness in him to bounce back when Jesus invited him to have another go at discipleship a few weeks later.  How many of us shed tears over our denials?  Is there enough integrity in us to say sorry to those we have let down and to have another go at loving them?

Am I one of the crucifixion cohort?  These Roman soldiers were simply carrying out orders.  Like the Nazis, or the state machinery in the Soviet Union, Uganda, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Rwanda and all those places where people were accused of atrocities up and down the centuries (into our own).  I may never have killed anyone, like these rogues, but am I always rationalising my poor choice of actions by placing the blame on extenuating circumstances?  Do I, do you, ever refuse to accept responsibility for cowardly acts and evasions?  Perhaps I am one of the crowd?  That Friday morning in the Praetorium was a highly-charged and political occasion, and emotions were at fever pitch.  The crowd got carried away.  They didn’t really know, or were not fully informed about, what was going on.   We all get a bit carried away at times. Do I ever hide behind the crowd?  In his Father Brown detective stories, G. K. Chesterton says that, “the best place for a man to hide himself is in a crowd of other men.”  It goes on in the Church’s diocesan machinery, in company boardrooms, in government, the police, schools, universities - indeed everywhere you find human beings.

Not all of these words will speak to your life or to my life.  But the Great Week, Holy Week, is a very human week, a week in which humanity is laid bare.  The light of Christ exposes shadows.  So some of this weekend’s Friday Thoughts may be of some use to someone reading.  Thank you for doing so.  Have a wonderful weekend!