Let’s Talk: About Holy Week

By Conference Minister Diane Weible

It is Holy Week—our second Holy Week in the midst of pandemic.  

Maundy Thursday has always offered me a reminder of the importance of community and covenant—the importance of The Table. Good Friday has always been a day of deep reflection for me. I stand in awe as I look at the cross and think about the sacrifice that Jesus made for me—for all of us. I also stand ready to receive the responsibility I carry to listen to God’s call in my life.  

I have said this many times in recent years, but that Call is screaming at me to focus my time and energy on responding to or fighting back against anything that denies or destroys the humanity of any living thing, of anything that God has created. It demands that I remember that Community is everything and God did not create us to live in silos but to live with one another and to love our neighbor, even if our neighbor is someone we have yet to meet.  

Whether it be the awful attacks on Asian Americans or the appalling disregard for Black and Brown bodies or the violence aimed at LGBTQI individuals or the perpetuation of gender discrimination, there is a lot of work for me to do. For us to do.  

Living alone in my home for over a year has done nothing but clarify this for me because the distractions have fallen away and what I see is the simple truth that too many people are being harmed by White Supremacy and Colonialism. Too many people are being killed because others feel it is their right and privilege to take what is not theirs—even if that is the very life of another human being.  

When I am reminded of the importance of breaking bread with everyone in my Community and when I feel the weight of the Cross and the depth of God’s sacrifice and love on Good Friday, I also know that soon I will embrace the impact of transformational love represented by the empty tomb and the blooming cross. Holy Week offers me the opportunity to journey with Jesus in this sacred time and recognize that the journey does not end on Easter Sunday. Instead, the journey begins anew because there is so much more to the story of God’s love for us and God’s Call for us to be co-conspirators in the work that is before us. We do not travel through Holy Week to end at Easter Sunday. We travel through Holy Week to begin a new journey as the sun begins to rise.