Making Room for What Matters Most

Week 6 – A Reflection for Holy Week

Scripture Readings from the Gospel of Matthew

Take some time this week to reflect on the Passion – Jesus’ journey of suffering to the cross.  The chosen passages and reflection by Henri Nouwen guide our attention to “the patient way.”

Palm Sunday – Matthew 21:1-11
Maundy Thursday – Matthew 26:17-56
Good Friday – Matthew 27:32-61

As you read, consider:

• How does Jesus’ journey to the cross show us “the way” of suffering?
• What thoughts/feelings emerge about God/Jesus?
• Do you find yourself connecting to any scenes/moments in the story? If so, why do you think that is?

Jesus Entered Jerusalem to Teach Us a Lesson About Easy Victories

By Henri Nouwen

We like easy victories: growth without crisis, healing without pains, the resurrection without the cross. No wonder we enjoy watching parades and shouting out to returning heroes, miracle workers, and record breakers. No wonder our communities seem organized to keep suffering at a distance: People are buried in ways that shroud death with euphemism and ornate furnishings. Institutions hide away the mentally ill and criminal offenders in a continuing denial that they belong to the human family. Even our daily customs lead us to cloak our feelings and speak politely through clenched teeth and prevent honest, healing confrontation. Friendships become superficial and temporary.

The way of Jesus looks very different. While Jesus brought great comfort and came with kind words and a healing touch, he did not come to take all our pains away. Jesus entered into Jerusalem in his last days on a donkey, like a clown at a parade. This was his way of reminding us that we fool ourselves when we insist on easy victories. When we think we can succeed in cloaking what ails us and our times in pleasantness. Much that is worthwhile comes only through confrontation.

The way from Palm Sunday to Easter is the patient way, the suffering way. Indeed, our word patience comes from the ancient root patior, “to suffer.” To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship. For if we insist on continuing to cover our pains with easy “Hosannas,” we run the risk of losing our patience. We are likely to become bitter and cynical or violent and aggressive when the shallowness of the easy way wears through. Instead, Christ invites us to remain in touch with the many sufferings of every day and to taste the beginning of hope and new life right there, where we live amid our hurts and pains and brokenness. By observing his life, his followers discover that when all of the crowd’s “Hosannas” had fallen silent, when disciples and friends had left him, and after Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then it was that the Son of Man rose from death. Then he broke through the chains of death and became Savior. That is the patient way, slowly leading me from the easy triumph to the hard victory.

I am less likely to deny my suffering when I learn how God uses it to mold me and draw me closer to him. I will be less likely to see my pains as interruptions to my plans and more able to see them as the means for God to make me ready to receive him. I let Christ live near my hurts and distractions.

I remember an old priest who one day said to me, “I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted; then I realized that the interruptions were my work.” The unpleasant things, the hard moments, the unexpected setbacks carry more potential than we usually realize. For the movement from Palm Sunday to Easter takes us from the easy victory built on small dreams and illusions to the hard victory offered by the God who waits to purify us by his patient, caring hand.

A Prayer
by Henri Nouwen

Merciful God,
you know my weakness and distress.
Yet the weaker I am,
the stronger your help.
Grant that I may accept with joy and gratitude
the gift of this time and grace,
and bear witness to your work in my life.

Amen.