It is like a yearly retreat and it is like a heartache.
We start out rejoicing on Palm Sunday, ringing out sweet "Hosannas!" and then abruptly crying out with the crowd, "Crucify him!"
We are overcome, sent to our knees in repentant silence. It is so still you can almost hear the temple cloth tear in two.
But that was just yesterday, just Palm Sunday. We will be at Church almost daily this week. This is a week. The week. This is the time when Church Time and actual time, historical time march in step for a brief blip in the Liturgical Year. This week we follow His final week, from the washing of the disciples' feet to His fulfilling of the Passover Supper with the Lamb of God's flesh and blood. We suffer through the betrayal, arrest, and trial with the Sanhedrin. Pilate washes his hands, Barabbas walks amongst us again as our God takes His final tortured steps to Calvary. He breathes His last. His side is pierced. We are splashed in the flow of water and blood.
We don't understand. We weep or stand in dry eyed shock. He is taken from us into the tomb on Friday, and we wait.
Holy Saturday is such an empty day.
We contemplate a world where God is dead. Dead because of us. Because of me...
Personally.
Then, as it does every other Saturday, the sun goes down.
Alleluia.
After an empty Saturday, the empty tomb.
He is Risen.
My Lord and my God!
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