Each year of my ministry we offered a Maundy Thursday service of Tenebrae.  I have to admit that it was always one of the least attended services of the year, but it was also one that I found the most meaningful.  Yes, the last hours of Jesus’ life and his crucifixion are hard to hear about, but without hearing the whole story, Easter won’t mean as much as it could and won’t carry the same power it should.

Of course, we all look forward to Easter Sunday and the promise and hope it gives us.  But there is something about the hard days before, which speaks to the reality of life and, for me, the reality of a faith that acknowledges that.   We all know dark and hard days, and we need a faith that can speak to such times and meet us in such places.

But we also need a faith that can remind us that there is more and that God shows us a path to something better.  The story of Holy week is not that there is a silver lining in every cloud.  The story acknowledges that bad things happen and are real, but trusts that, as the book of Romans reminds us,  “God is working for good in all things”.   This week reminds us of why Jesus came to live the reality of the life we live, and to remind us that even though hard things happen to us, God is working for good – our good – even through the Good Fridays of our lives.  There is much we can’t know or see, but God can.  These days remind us that trust in Him is really the only thing we can trust.

Hearing the story of Jesus’ final days -is not easy, but it brings us through a journey from despair to joy, from shock and sadness to a deep hope, from death to new life.  This journey reminds us of what God can do in our own lives, especially when we are facing our own hard times.   Even though I will not be in a pulpit this Holy week, I will read, once again, the story, not because it is an easy story, but because, I need to hear it – because I need to be reminded.  I hope, in one way or another, you get to hear the story again, and maybe recognize how it touches your life, so that on Sunday you see how that powerful Easter truth also is for you.  May this be so for each of us.