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Holy Week Yr Wythnos Fawr

Yr Wythnos Fawr

[Literal translation from Welsh to English is The Great Week]

Photo by JINU JOSEPH on Pexels.com

I love the Christian Holy Week, or as the literal Welsh translation calls it “The Great Week”, that week from Palm Sunday through to Easter Sunday. I can see myself in so many of the characters – part of the crowd that gets excited because everyone else is excited on the Sunday. I often don’t need to know what’s going on to get emotionally involved – to cry at a single musical theatre song, to cheer when someone wins something even if I’m not sure of the event. People’s emotions connect with me, which means I could also see myself as part of the angry mob too because I could so easily get caught up with the moment.

I can understand why the disciples asked Jesus why he was curing the fig tree, why he trashed the temple, wonder what he was on about when he said the temple would be rebuild in three days; have traveled with him for so long and yet still not got the message.

I could so easily have been Judas, not so much betraying but trying to force Jesus’ hand in, what I saw was a safer or more effective way; could have been Peter who one day totally gets it and calls Jesus Messiah then later on denies him when he’s afraid of the consequences.

Knowing the end of the story I’d love to say that I would have just done the cheering, just done the Messiah acknowledging, not denied, not thought Jesus wasn’t sure what he was doing, would have totally got what was going on. But that’s because I know what happens next.

I realise, if I’m totally honest with myself, if I was there and didn’t know what came next I would be as fallible as the rest of those there. I would have slept when I should have been awake, would have run away when I should have stayed, would have hidden behind locked doors rather than have walked boldly.

So this year as I listen to the Bible Society read to me the The Great Week stories – I try to remember how fickle and fallible that I truly am. And then remember that God knows that anyway and loves me unconditionally anyway.

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Holy Week Wednesday

Holy Wednesday

My little dog, Renly, and Mikey the greyhound who I walk twice a week. Photographed 25th March 2024 by myself. Both dogs but both not only very different in size but in temperament. Mikey is very nervy and scared of his own shadow whereas Renly would take on the world

I am really enjoying working my way through Holy Week, looking at things differently and see what God reveals to me, and then sharing it with you.

Today the verses read in churches are Judas betraying Jesus [Matthew 26:14-16] and Mary anointing Jesus at Simon the Lepers house [Matthew26:6-13] Interestingly the gospel of John puts Mary anointing Jesus as six days before Passover and the day before Palm Sunday. But I’m going with the Matthew order because it suits my story letting and the point I’d like to make. See we all change things to suit what we would like to say 🙂

So there are three key people in these stories –

  • Judas, who has followed Jesus for about three years, has been picked as one of the top twelve, knows Jesus intimately, was there when Peter said “You are the Christ”, and yet wants to force Jesus’s hand. It is like he has worked out, though what he has heard from Jesus, what the ultimate goal is, and so he wants to take control, do things his way and move things along a bit. He knows that the high priests want to do something to get rid of Jesus, but I think Judas believes that if he takes control then Jesus will smite all who are oppressing the people. Really following from Jesus’s trashing of the temple the religious leaders were exploiting the people in their worship as much as the Romans were exploiting the people in their regular work life. So Judas had it worked out and “knew” he could sort things out.
  • Simon the Leper, was high up in society, has money and influence, and sees in Jesus maybe a kindred spirit. He knows this is someone he needs to get in with, to get to know better. He can pick up that there is something about Jesus that he likes and wants more of. So he invites Jesus to a meal to chat with him, to find out more about him, to work out whether he is worth supporting.
  • Mary, the woman who “wastes” an expensive perfume anointing Jesus. Tradition says she could have been a prostitute but we don’t know, but from Simon’s reaction she isn’t the sort of person who should be messing with the man he might sponsor. We never know where she gets the perfume. It has been said she saved it up from her prostitution work, but that was a lot of perfume so either she was a high-class prostitute or she was quite old. I do like the idea of her being a high-class whore and that some of the men eating with Jesus at the moment, and maybe even Simon himself, had known her intimately and it had been some of their money that had paid towards that perfume. Anyway wherever it came from she doesn’t care. She is so in love with this man and sees so much in him that she wants to just abundantly worship him and not give a stuff what anyone else things.

So we have

  • The believer who wants things done their way
  • The almost believer who wants more proof before they commit
  • The abundant worshiper who crazily worships without need control, details or proof.

So which one are you? Which one am I?

I would say I’m all three.

  • Sometimes I get mad at Jesus because I believe I know what the right way would be, what God should/shouldn’t do. But then I and either God doesn’t tell me what I want to hear, or for a situation I don’t get the answers I think are right for that given situation. This is because God see the bigger picture. But I still, at times, would like to force God’s hand.
  • Sometimes I am wary of committing and would like a bit more proof, please. Like that whole thing of not being open about what I believe, not telling people I’m praying for them. But also at times not praying or doing because I’ve felt I’ve been let down by God before and so I don’t quite trust them.
  • And then there are times when I need no proof and don’t care what the outcome is or what other people thing but just trust in Jesus and am able to worship with a free heart.

I believe all three of these people appear at this part of the story to help us see who diverse we are. None of these people are wrong [Jesus had to be crucified so it wasn’t Judas who did it but it was God’s plan – another blog maybe???] All were doing what we all do at certain times during our Christian walk – getting mad and trying to control God, wanting more proof, unhindered worship.

I think we need to learn to be kinder on ourselves and realise God knows us fully, loves us fully, died for us fully, and so it is ok to roll between these different ways that we accept Jesus, but also at the end of Monday’s post, come back to forgiving – ourselves, each other, God – and not feel guilty for “getting it wrong again”

Also when I think too often we think of singing as singing. And there is nothing wrong with that. But as when Mary anoints Jesus she is worshiping by making a bit of a spectacle of herself and giving away something important. Sometimes, I think, that for me that can listening to the old ladies I see on my dog walk and not judging, not telling them what they should do, but really listening, and then giving it to God afterwards. Sometimes it is chattering to the birds and the trees and the sea and the sky and telling it how amazing it is.

With Mary it moves back to that thing from Palm Sunday of what would I be willing to give to Jesus in extravagant worship, like with the laying of the coats in front of the donkey?

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being me belief Bible crucified faith glorifyingGod Jesus mystery of God perspective

God Is So Clever

I’ve blogged before on why I believe in God and what makes me follow Him but I just love it when He does something really clever!

We have started going to a Kesher course. Kesher means something to do with the way Christianity and Judaism is joined together. In honesty I went because I like the woman who is running the course and wanted to support her. And at the time when she set it up we didn’t know many people and so wanted to connect with others. Anyway I am so glad we did. We have only been twice but I am stuck on one thing that we learned this week.

shutterstock_232986844So when Jesus gets crucified the Bible says that Pilate put up a plaque above Jesus on the cross that said “King of the Jews” and the Jewish leaders who wanted him crucified for this very reason got really angry with Pilate and wanted him to take it down. I’d always thought all that was odd. The reason the Jewish leaders had bullied Pilate into crucifying Jesus was because he had declared himself as king, so they said and “they had no other king than Caesar” is what they said. So why get mad about what was there? But also why did Pilate have that plaque put up anyway?

Well it turns out that every person who was crucified had a plaque with their name and what their crime was at the top of their cross. We do often forget that crucifixion wasn’t a heads_on_spikesspecial punishment in Roman times but was something they did quite a bit and then they would leave the crucified person there for ages as an example. A bit like we use to do over here and leave the condemned man hanging on the gibbet at the crossroads or in a cage on the side of the city walls, or heads on poles from Tower Bridge. That sort of thing. As an example. And to be a good example it was good to remind people what the crimes were that could get you crucified.

So Pilate had this plaque which says “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews” done because that was the rules that went with crucifixion. Well according to our teacher on Friday the way it would have been written the starting letters above Jesus’ head would have given an acrostic which would have said YWYH – which is the way the Jews would write God and it was unspoken. So here is the man they condemned with the word that Jews saw as too holy to speak in an acrostic above him as he was dying. Wow! Now I think that is so clever of God to get all that sorted.

I think He was still trying to make them see that Jesus was truly God but they still didn’t believe it. Instead these Jewish leaders defiled themselves and went before Pilate, the heathen Roman, on the eve of Passover, to demand he take the sign down. They were so angry that they would rather be unclean and not able to celebrate their most important highhorsefestival. Amazing!

But it also got me thinking of how often we get so stuck on our high horse – whether follower of Jesus or not – that we miss totally what God is trying to say and would rather miss out that accept.