We enter Holy Week through the gate of Palm Sunday. In this message, I explore the power of these biblical stories, not as artifacts of history, but as agents of our spiritual transformation. I map Holy Week as a form of the perennial vision of the soul’s journey. To heal and transform what’s outside us we seek to heal and transform what’s inside us. On this journey the 23rd Psalm is an apt companion.
Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. If we were together in the sanctuary, we’d re-enact Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. We’d wave our palm branches and shout our Hosannas; the children would laugh and dance, and we grownups would try to be a little more playful.
It’s different this year, we’re separated from one another, but we’ll still tell the Holy Week stories of what Jesus did and taught, and what happened to him.
What’s the purpose of these stories? Why do we keep remembering the Bible’s stories of Holy Week every year? Do we tell these stories in order to pass on interesting historical facts as if they’re part of a modern documentary film? Or is there another reason, deeper, bigger?
The Gospels, in fact, the whole Bible is not a documentary; it’s not history as we know history today. The Bible is story, imaginative history, metaphor, myth in the true sense of the word. Myth today means lies or illusion. That’s not what myth means when it refers to the development of human life and culture. Myth, in its true sense, is a word we use for the way human beings have tried to make sense of what is bigger than we are, the truths that are beyond us, realities we are always grasping for, but that remain, necessarily, elusive and beyond description and domestication to human thought and language.
Neil Gaiman is a modern writer. Mostly fantasy. His books have been honored with many awards internationally, including the Newbery and Carnegie Medals, Hugo and Nebula awards. He wrote American Gods, and has recently recast Norse myths for modern life. Here’s what he says about a particular form of myth, the fairy tale: “Fairy tales are more than true.” They don’t try to convince us that dragons exist, instead they inspire us to know that “dragons can be beaten.”
“If someone says,” he says, “‘We have investigated—there was no Snow White.’ I’m not going to say, ‘Oh no, the story is now empty and meaningless!’ No, the point about Snow White is that you can keep fighting. The point about Snow White is that even when those who are meant to love you put you in an intolerable situation, you can run away, you can make friends, you can cope. . . . even when all is at its darkest, you can get yourself out of trouble.”
That is exactly the kind of thing the Bible intends to do.
Let’s take Holy Week. The point of the story of Holy Week and all that Jesus experiences, is that we can not only survive difficult times, we can rise up out of what might try to put us in the grave. The point of Holy Week is that when things turn abruptly against you and you find yourself in a terrifying situation with danger and even death all around you, you can find a way out of the trouble. The point of Holy Week is that when you are desperate and there seems to be no help coming for you at all, God comes, and whenever God comes, you are never alone, never a victim, and that something good will come from something so apparently bad.
That’s what the story of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday is all about. And isn’t that exactly what we need now?
There are many who won’t see all this, whose imaginations aren’t awakened, whose windows to the soul are closed to the spiritual vision they need to thrive.
Saint Paul understood this. In his first letter to the Corinthian church he explains why many people miss the spiritual intention of these stories. They dismiss them as lies or they treat them as fact; both options fail to give us what our bodies, minds, and souls need most—the inner transformation that makes outer transformations possible.
“None of the rulers of this age understood this,” Paul wrote. “For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. We speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spirit. Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned….But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2.8, 10, 13-14, 15
We too can have the mind of Christ—that is, our souls too can be united with all that is divine, with all the spiritual power of God in the universe. And when our souls are one with God, when we have, in Paul’s language, the “mind of Christ,” there’s nothing that can unsettle us for long. We will find ourselves swept up in the splendor of God; we will find ourselves truly saved—not from this world and its troubles, but saved to be in this world and to face its troubles with faith and hope, courage and love.
And that’s exactly what we need now. That’s exactly why I believe Holy Week is the best thing we can experience now in the midst of the world’s suffering.
Holy Week is a sign of God’s mischief in these difficult times.
On Palm Sunday, the story goes, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. Jesus embodied the promise spoken centuries earlier by the prophet Zechariah, the promise that God would send a Messiah, a deliverer, who would come humbly and yet powerfully to deliver the people from the arrogance of tyrants, from oppression, calamity, and the fear that goes with it.
This deliverance wasn’t dependent on any political regime, any intellectual achievement, any technological innovation, any military power. It was a deliverance from the sickness of soul that has afflicted every civilization. It was a deliverance into the wellness of soul—the transformation of life from the inside out.
Unless we heal what’s inside us we will never heal what’s outside us.
This transformation requires death, the death of old assumptions, habits, and behaviors, the death of old systems, regimes, and economies. But from this death, something new will rise, something eternal, something no worldly power can hold down or conquer.
Soul, the ultimate reality. My soul, your soul, the world’s soul, the Divine Soul. The wellness of Soul leads to the wellness of the world.
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, this is what’s happening now in these difficult days.
Whether we like it or not, we’re all on this journey. There’s no escaping it. But Holy Week shows us what we can make of it and what the journey can do in us and through us, if we will participate in it consciously.
Let us trust not only the journey but the Holy Presence who walks with us on the way. The story of Jesus shows us that we are never alone. We can trust the One who leads us and all we care about into the transformation, which is what Easter is all about.
We can not only survive difficult times, we can rise up out of what might try to put us in the grave. When things turn abruptly against us and we find ourselves in a terrifying situation with danger and even death all around us, we can find a way out of the trouble. When we are desperate and there seems to be no help coming for us at all, God will come, and whenever God comes, we are never alone, never victims, and something good always comes from something that otherwise could be so bad.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.