THERE is no limit to the ways most professing Christians make hypocrites of themselves this Holy Week when “sinning” is prohibited. Thieves and robbers rest. Prostitutes stay at home. No job for hired killers, too. There are places where goons parade the streets half-naked and barefooted while whipping their bleeding backs “to secure God’s forgiveness.” Broadcasters say no bad words on the air.
It’s as if it’s all right to sin the rest of the year, but not in the Holy Week. If that’s not hypocrisy in Christ’s name, then I don’t know what is.
I wish it were the other way around: Sin for only one week and act “holy” the rest of the year.
I can never forget that distant past when an old woman scolded us small boys playing noisily at the plaza on a Good Friday.
“God is dead today,” she admonished, reminding us of Jesus Christ’s fatal crucifixion.
My young mind could not fathom how God could die every year without losing control of the universe.
Rather than belabor the issue, let’s agree that “Holy Week” refers to the final week of Jesus’ life as told by disciples Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Palm Sunday recounts Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey as a multitude of Jews holding olive leaves gathered around him, shouting “Hosanna” – a Hebrew word meaning “Save us!
But while the crowd might have really loved the Jew Jesus, the leaders of the Jewish establishment hated him.
Maundy Thursday brings back to mind that day when tension between Jesus and the religious leaders rose to fever pitch.
“Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love” (John 13:1).
He did it by washing his disciples’ feet and by sharing with them his last supper.
On Maundy Thursday, churches throughout the world share Communion as a way of both remembering Jesus’ final meal with his disciples and solemnly rejoicing in how Christ comes to believers for the forgiveness of sins.
Good Friday commemorates the day on which Christ hung and died on the cross. As to how his suffering and death turned out to be “good,” theologians simply interpret it to be so because it has made possible the “redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7).
According to the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus’ act of driving money changers and merchants out of the Jewish temple had infuriated the high priests.
“Easter” in Easter Sunday is of pagan origin, referring to Austron, the goddess of fertility and sunrise. No wonder some Christian churches celebrate the resurrection of Jesus via “Easter sunrise service.”
There is discrepancy in the resurrection tales as told by Mark and Matthew. In Mark, three women – identified as Mary Magdalene, Salome and Mary the mother of James – visited Jesus’ tomb on Sunday morning, only to find it empty; the tomb stone cover had already been rolled away.
In the book of Matthew, the same women initially found it closed. Then there came an “angel” whole rolled the stone away, revealing an already empty tomb.
Strangely, it was only Paul (Acts 1:9) who wrote having seen the resurrected Jesus in the company of 11 apostles for 40 days, after which “he rose into the sky and disappeared into a cloud.” A perpetually dead Christ would have rendered Christianity a farce. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
