Passion as gateway to joy

Holy Week is truly a week of reversals. We go from “Hosanna!”, as Jesus enters into Jerusalem, to “Crucify Him!”, to “‘Into your hands, I commend my spirit.’ And after saying this, He breathed His last.” We are discombobulated by the rollercoaster nature of Christ’s Passion and all of its twists and turns. Holy Week is, however, truly a ride not to be missed. Moving through Christ’s Passion is not easy for us. We peer into Christ’s darkness, from Tenebrae on Holy Wednesday through Christ’s broken body on Good Friday. But we come out on the other side changed by what God in Christ has wrought in us and for us: a new heaven and a new earth, a world that death no longer holds, a future that we can believe in and lay claim to …. if we are willing. The Passion of Jesus Christ is God’s greatest act of love, most grace-filled moment witnessed through the frailty of His very self, His only Son. The joy of Easter moves only through the Passion of Christ. God, again, invites us to come and see the magnificence of His greatest love in Jesus, the obedience, loving, and suffering One who takes away the sins of the world.