This is Holy Week, the week when we descend into the depths; the last days of Jesus life. The week begins on a high, as he rides into Jerusalem—not on a white horse; not carried on one of those silly king moving moving thrown, not with security surrounding him.

Instead, he rides in on a young colt/donkey. And as he comes into Jerusalem, many disciples from the surrounding countryside come out to line the road, throwing down blankets and cloaks and palms, shouting about all they have seen Jesus do, and calling on him to save them. They call him a king. 

You can’t just go around naming people “king” when there’s already a ruler in the land, so this will not go so well for Jesus. But he seems to also know there’s not much that can be done at this point. The crowd won’t be silenced; and if they were, the very earth would begin to shout. 

This week we’ll find him gathering over a last supper with his disciples. 

He’ll wash their feet. 

He’ll give them a new commandment, that they love one another as he has loved. 

He’ll institute a new covenant in his body and blood, with words said over bread and wine, that come with a promise that Christ will always be with us, and always forgive. 

And then he’ll go out to the garden and pray, and he’ll pray that there might be some other way-that something might happen so that he doesn’t have to go through this. 

“But not my will, but yours be done” he will say out there in that garden. 

And what is God’s will in this? I think it was the will of God that Jesus declare the coming of God’s kingdom.  A kingdom of peace; a kingdom of self-sacrificing love and grace; a kingdom of radical inclusion, eternal patience, risk, sacrifice, and not might and power. 

And that involved this sacrifice—choosing not to fight, or win through military might, but instead through the self-emptying. Jesus died, not because a furious Father in heaven needed to kill his son in order to love us, but because Jesus came to show us how to love and usher in a new way of being. 

Jesus is still saving us, in all kinds of ways, every day. 

That is the God to follow. All the way to the cross. And beyond.

You can find Spirit Garage engaging in Holy Week in these ways: 

Maundy Thursday Dinner Church: 

April 18th, 6-7:30

Squirrel Haus Arts

We will make bread, learn about communion and the last supper, decorate Easter Eggs, write dinner prayers and share a meal together. 

Good Friday: The Final Hours

April 19th, 7 PM

Squirrel Haus Arts

We will walk through the final hours of Jesus’ life as told in the gospel of Luke, stopping to hear reflections, sing and reflect in various ways. 

And, see you Easter Sunday 

April 21, 10:30 AM

Hook and Ladder Theater

The first song of the worship service is the song you had no idea you’d been waiting to hear all Winter, so don’t be late! Easter egg Hunt following the service.