We are in the midst of Holy Week. Why are the days from Palm Sunday to Easter called Holy? This is the week we remember God’s love lavished on us. At Christmas, God comes to us in the beauty and vulnerability of a child. In this Holy Week, we see Jesus taking up the cross and absorbing all the sins of the world. At the table, we hear Jesus say, “do this in remembrance of me.” This week, Jesus endures all our human cruelty, suffering, failure and loss. This Holy Week, God experiences the very worst of human sinfulness.

The Love Letter that is 1 John 4 says: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God…This is how God showed love among us: God sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

In this week, God wearing human flesh allows Gods-self to suffer and die. The Creator allows the created to kill the Creator. Perfect Love lets evil win the day. The Resurrection and The Life suffers death. Love is crucified. Yet Evil, sin, suffering, and loss cannot bind the Love of God.

Charles Wesley expresses the Holy Week victory writing:

Christ, the Lord, is risen today, Alleluia!

Heaven and earth in chorus say, Alleluia!

Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!

Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!

Fought the fight, the battle is won, Alleluia!

Death in vain forbids Him rise, Alleluia!

Christ has opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!

Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!

Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!

Where is your victory, O grave? Alleluia!

The cross is an intersection of God’s love and human failure. At this crossroads of the very worst of human sinfulness springs a fountain of God’s grace, forgiveness, hope, love, victory and our salvation. Join us this Holy Week and Easter Sunday as we celebrate the triumph of God’s love over our sin, suffering and death.   Come celebrate all the goodness of The God Who So Loves the World.

Grace and Peace

Paul