A previous editor of The Catholic Weekly once told me that my Lent columns always got grumpier with each week.
He’s exactly right. Lent has a way of making me see all my failings very clearly, and that makes me exasperated with myself. So by the time we get to Palm Sunday, I am irritable and ready to find Holy Week confusing and distressing.
This isn’t a bad thing, because the original Holy Week was confusing and distressing for everyone involved. It’s always good to check in with the Gospels every now and then and read them with fresh eyes as a whole story.
Many of us are probably too familiar with the basic events, perhaps not helped by starchy old Hollywood portrayals and lacklustre public re-enactments.
Everyone moves slowly, recites their lines in a ponderous way, and the whole thing feels flat and unreal. But if you simply read the Passion as a report of events, it’s wildly different. It’s an emotional rollercoaster: confusing, irritating, distressing, and unfair.
We start with Palm Sunday and mob approval. Everyone has decided that Jesus is the next big thing – a popular king-prophet, a feeder of thousands, and a vanquisher of the Romans.
But by Good Friday we have learnt that a week is a long time in politics. The same people who were whooping with joy are now voting with their feet.
Jesus has been betrayed by one of his closest friends for money, which is just about the shabbiest thing you can be betrayed for. He’s been arrested and is now being dragged around town while his enemies work out what they’re going to do with him.
Jesus has failed publicly and catastrophically. There is no going back from a failure of this magnitude. What’s worse, the people that everyone hoped he’d get rid of – the Romans and the more oppressive religious leaders – now hold the whip hand to restore their version of order.
He has let literally everyone down – every single one of those people who believed in him and hoped they’d have a happier future because of him. Pilate didn’t really want to execute Jesus, and he offers him ways out that would work for both of them.
Jesus refuses to take them. By doing so, he’s now also placed all his friends’ lives in danger. His behaviour is inexplicable. His followers know that he has amazing powers – so why isn’t he using them?
Why on earth is he letting himself be publicly humiliated by the people everyone hates the most?
They wait right to the bitter end for him to do something dazzling from the cross. He fails them again and so now they mock him. The trouble is that during his mission, none of Jesus’ closest friends were really listening to him. They only heard and saw what they wanted to hear and see.
They ignored or forgot the warnings he gave them about his capture, punishment, and execution. They definitely forgot – or just plain didn’t believe – the bit about him rising from the dead.
We tend to pin all the blame on Judas, while forgetting that the other eleven members of the Jerusalem Catholic Bishops’ Conference also didn’t distinguish themselves on that first Good Friday.
All of them except John – and possibly not even John – gave way to fear and cowardice when things got rough. And so here we are, folks. That’s us in the crowd, whooping for joy, and then calling for his crucifixion at the end of the week.
That’s us in his inner circle, carefully editing out all the bits of his teachings that we don’t like or find uncomfortable.
That’s us following him just as long as we can mould him into our own image of the Messiah, no matter how badly it fits, or how at odds it is with the real Gospel.
This is why I get so irritable. It’s confronting and scary. I have to wrestle with this stuff in Holy Week just like everyone else. I have to ask forgiveness from Jesus for all the times I’ve been as fickle as the mob, and as unhearing as his disciples.
I have to say sorry for all the times I’ve preferred my version of Jesus to the real one, and in doing so left him lonelier than ever. So if you find Holy Week a bit trying, you are not alone. I think there are lots of us out there who become uncomfortable, and I think that’s healthy.
Don’t worry. Ride it out. We’re almost there.
