This Holy Week prompts some thoughts which I hope will not be taken as cynicical, but which may prompt a more realistic and less ridiculous approach to the Passion of our Lord.
Have you noticed that everything Jesus' disciples failed to do during Holy Week, we seem perfectly able to do. That Passover night none of the disciples wanted to do the servile chore of washing the feet of the guests in the Upper Room. But our priests gladly take up the towel and basin. They get it right.
After Maunday Thursday communion, our church has an all-night vigil. The rector's invitation was that we not disappoint the Lord as his first bunch had. When Jesus said, "Could you not watch with me for one hour?" we could now say, "Yes, Lord, you can count on us."
On Friday, those first Christians were not to be found within a centurion's spear throw of Golgotha, except maybe John hiding behind Mary's dress. But look how we come with great solemnity, some even to kiss the cross in bare feet (idols often bring such piece of mind).
On the Via Delarosa Jesus carries his cross alone and abandoned, but today's Anglo-Catholics crowd the aisles shuffling through the stations of the cross.
And come Easter morning, remembering those first apostles cowering in fear and disbelief, we will get it right and shout out the good news, "Hallelujah, the Lord is risen!"
So, having come through a holy Lent with Jesus, watched with him, and having adored his suffering sacrifice, how much better we now feel. How good to know we got it right. We didn't desert you, Lord. We aren't like those apostolic losers (No wonder you can't trust their doctrine). If we had been there, Jesus, things would have been a lot different.
I remember a hymn we used to sing when I was a child. The music was inspiring; the theology atrocious. The verse started with a question, "Are ye able, saith the Master, to be crucified with me?" and then would follow the rousing victorious chorus, "Lord, we are able ..."
The evangelical faith is this: we cannot keep God's law. We justly deserve his anger and wrath. We are completely unable to effect a reconciliation with God except first God by grace God resurrects our dead souls to faith in Jesus. The whole purpose of the cross was that Jesus did what needed doing precisely because we couldn't. Jesus never asked us to carry his cross (or to kiss it), but to carry our own. What is our cross? It's not merely some bad habit or difficult circumstance. My cross and yours is the powerlessness and hopelessness of our situation without the intervening grace of God acting once and for all, not needing our annual re-enactment, as if by ritual we might now convince God of our worthiness.
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