Holy Week is the annual opportunity to simply live your life in the light of Jesus’ story more than you usually do. We know more about this one week of Jesus’ life than any other part of his life. All of the gospel writers thought it was the most important part. All throughout March and February we’ve been turning away from death and toward life, Jesus’ life—a life that goes through death—the only life that goes through death. So let’s live that life with him. Let’s live the whole week with Jesus.

Start here on the Daily Prayer each morning. Every day will offer a way to experience the story, on your own and in community.

Today’s Bible reading

Read Matthew 26:6-13 and Luke 7:36-50

While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked.  “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”

Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you,^[a] but you will not always have me.  When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial.  Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

More thoughts for meditation

This is one of the handful of stories that all four gospel writers made sure to include some version of in their narratives of Jesus’ life. Could it be that they all remembered Jesus saying, “Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her”?

“Don’t forget to include the story of the anointing at Bethany!” The gospel writers might have said.  It must be important. Let’s sit with it today and see how it is important to us. Traditionally it is thought that this woman might be Mary Magdalene — one of the women who stayed with Jesus through his death on the cross and to whom the resurrected Jesus appeared first. Mary does a beautiful thing for Jesus. She breaks the glass jar and spills it on his head — an act of consecration like a bishop might do for a king — a royal anointing performed by the high priestess of this new reality in Christ. Mary could have impulsively, in her knowing joy and sorrow, stumbled into a symbolic action which Jesus immediately reinterprets, or, and this seems more likely to me, she could have been listening to Jesus this whole time and known that going to Jerusalem as he had done would mean his death. Rather than deny it as the named disciples did, she may have been letting it sink in; and deep within her, her understanding of Jesus’ death met with her desire to honor him and she devised a beautiful ceremony to both name him as the king he was and acknowledge the coming loss.

What happens when the knowledge of Jesus’ death sinks in to you? Where does it meet your desire? What is the desire you need to express in the light of this Holy Week? How is Jesus a part of it?

Our desires often run us around in unhelpful ways. But this senses-flooding moment with Mary and Jesus might reassure us that they are certainly not all bad. What beautiful thing might help you consecrate Jesus as king of your life, and acknowledge death as his crown?  Desire often gets stuck in evaluation. Am I satisfied now? Is the glass half empty or half full? Is the drink sweet or bitter? Do I want it enough? Mary’s beautiful act breaks the glass and lets it all spill out. She stops counting the cost and wondering why, and enters the moment fully in her joy and sorrow. It seems that full, dramatic, emotive expression is the thing here that cannot be forgotten. Mary understands that Jesus is going to die and if so, it’s now or never to show him what he means to her. The urgency of Holy Week might offer you a similar opportunity to just let it all spill out. He will make our brokenness beautiful.

Suggestions for action

Why not try to make something beautiful today? A poem, a prayer in your journal, a painting, a drawing, a bouquet of flowers from your yard, an instagram photo, a well-plated salad, a perfectly worded email, a sculpture of found objects, a carpet design with the vacuum cleaner, a song, a single line of a song, a dance, any art at all, anything, anything, anything beautiful. Try. That will be beautiful enough. And give your try to Jesus. It doesn’t have to take all day. Watch the sky for a moment in wonder and give that moment to Jesus, that would be beautiful enough.

The link for today’s observance is here, To make the experience more communal, you can also wait to watch with others at this link tonight at 8 p.m here and join a Zoom Afterhang here immediately after that at 8:30. Lots of ways to be together in this story. All the details at circleofhope.net/lent.

Today is John Donne Day! Meet with the libertine poet who became Dean of the Cathedral at Celebrating Our Transhistorical Body.

Holy Week is the annual opportunity to simply live your life in the light of Jesus’ story more than you usually do. We know more about this one week of Jesus’ life than any other part of his life. All of the gospel writers thought it was the most important part. All throughout March and February we’ve been turning away from death and toward life, Jesus’ life—a life that goes through death—the only life that goes through death. So let’s live that life with him. Let’s live the whole week with Jesus.

Start here on the Daily Prayer each morning. Every day will offer a way to experience the story, on your own and in community.

Today’s Bible reading

Read Luke 28:5-28

Now when these things begin to happen, stand up straight and raise your heads, because your redemption is near.–Luke 28:28

More thoughts for meditation

In this passage, Jesus is prophesying about the end of the world. Sometimes, we hear speculation and extrapolation of this passage to indicate a final end of the world. That sort of speculation is of dubious value, even if it’s tempting. But a time like that is coming. For now, we experience our own ends and beginnings of worlds which this passage can help us understand. To the Jewish people, the destruction of the temple in 70AD by the Romans is the end of their world. Jesus is naming that such a thing will happen. This temple will be destroyed; the temple which brought great national pride to a group of people who had suffered thousands of years of captivity and diaspora. This temple meant they had a home again. A place to belong. So its  destruction is cataclysmic to them.

Jesus is bringing them a greater hope though. And his prophecy is relevant to Christians throughout the age, who have found hope through tumult. The survival of the church through the darkest of ages is a testament to the power of our Lord to help us endure even the worst of circumstances. Perhaps you feel like you are in your own apocalypse now. This last year has certainly felt like an end to a world. May we emerge from this darkness with hope, knowing that is through trials and tribulations that we discover new hope together. The one thing that we know is true is that light will prevail against darkness, goodness against evil. Remember that as you endure your own apocalypse.

Suggestions for action

Consider your own apocalypse, or the collective one we’ve experienced this last year. Truly, it has been an end of the world. Throughout today, utter Jesus’ words: “stand up straight and raise your heads, because your redemption is near.”

Here’s the link for today’s observance . To make the experience more communal, you can also wait to watch with others at this link tonight at 8 p.m. and join a Zoom Afterhang immediately after that together-watch of the observance. Lots of ways to be together in this story. All the details at circleofhope.net/lent.