Holy Week: Two Sides of One Coin
Today I am reminded of what Easter Sunday looked like for me as a boy. I remember getting all dressed up in new spring clothes (usually in pastel colors) that my mom bought for me and going to our Christian Reformed Church in the morning.
The place was usually filled and everyone was in their best outfits as they belted out the classic hymns like “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and “Low In The Grave He Lay.” I can still hear the voices of older men and women around me signing perfect 4-part harmony.
After church, our family would gather with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins at my grandparents’ house for a huge meal, an egg hunt (which became more competitive the older I got) and lots of candy and chocolate bunnies. Usually by this time in the day, my new Easter “fit” was already soiled with at least a stain or two.
The day would end with us going to an evening service at my grandpa and grandma’s church where, if we were lucky, we would hear a couple of Easter hymns performed by the handbell choir.
It is fun to reminisce about the beauty, goodness, and hope that Easter brings through the eyes of a little boy. However, in recent years it has been much more difficult to recapture these feelings on Resurrection Sunday.
It’s not that I don’t still absolutely love the taste of Reese’s Eggs or Cadbury Chocolate Eggs (not the cream filled ones – the candy-coated ones) this time of year. And it is certainly not that the significance of a Risen Savior has diminished as I have grown older either. These days though, it feels like it has been much more difficult to move from the realities of the suffering and shame of Good Friday, and the deep grief of Holy Saturday, into a day where we celebrate the hope, grace, love, and new life that accompanies an empty tomb.
It only takes a brief glance at social media or any news outlet for us to realize that the world is filled with so much violence, suffering, unrest, and injustice - so much loss and despair. We experience these things at a macro level in our society and also on a deeply personal level, when we are met with unfavorable test results from a doctor, the threat or fall out of a relationship ending, feeling like we have lost our sense of purpose, or any other myriad of shame messages or frailties that we experience. At times our everyday life feels like (on a smaller scale) we are living through Good Friday and Holy Saturday on repeat.
Thankfully, because of the promise and hope of an empty tomb we don’t have to stay in the repeat cycle that comes with death. However, I don’t believe we are called to ignore it altogether either. As Richard Rohr states, “the Mystery of the Cross is saying that the pattern of transformation is always death transformed. Death and life are two sides of one coin, and you cannot have one without the other.” While we would certainly much rather avoid the suffering side of the “coin,” I wonder if it is possible for us to experience the fullness of the resurrection without us first giving our attention to the realities that come with the suffering and loss of living in a broken world.
Perhaps then, as this Holy Week draws to a close, we might turn our eyes to a sacred rhythm that the Father is inviting us into. Could it be that our Risen Savior is welcoming us to hold the pain and despair of our Fridays and Saturdays, along with the hope and goodness of resurrection on Sunday at the same time? Could it be that for me, the adult man who at times feels the weight of “the emblem of suffering and shame” in this world is meant to be deeply connected to the carefree, celebratory boy who loved all that Easter represents? What might it look like to have courage and hold the dichotomy that exists in this two-sided coin? Because of the significant power of Christ’s death and resurrection, both are needed, and both are good.
Michael Krommendyk, Administrative Assistant
