Complicated Hope

Today is Holy Saturday.

The names around Easter are confusing.  “Maundy” Thurday –  maundy meaning washing and celebrates the day Jesus washed the feet of his disciples took the last supper them.  “Good” Friday – we call Good the day of beating and brusing and ultimately death.  “Holy” Saturday – I doubt that many of Jesus’ friends felt holy as they sat in believable grief, fear for their own lives and even great doubt – had they been duped?

Then comes Sunday.

Resurrection Sunday.

Each name of this Holy Week reminds us of a choice to serve.  To wash feet, to feed others, to believe when all evidence points to the opposite of our faith.

Have you ever thought about what might have happened if Jesus had chose not die? Matthew 26:42 records that Jesus prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, Your will be done.”  In this moment, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is faced with choice – pain or a “pass.”

Jesus chose the pain.  The only way through it was, well, through it.

Jesus chose to drink the cup of pain.  To embrace the shame of the cross.  To die naked and alone hung before everyone he loved.

Because that was the only way for “it” to pass.

It – sin.  Separation.  Death for all humankind.

The only way for Sin to pass was for Jesus to choose to die.

Today, the choice now lies with us.  Humans.  Will we choose to accept the sacrifice Jesus made for us or will we continue to follow after our own will?

Resurrection Sunday is not about Jesus merely being alive.  It’s about you and I being alive because “it” not longer has power over us.

From a feast with friends to His final breathe, Jesus did all willingly, knowing the cost, the pain and the suffering.  So that we would not have to know that pain.

We too can celebrate Resurrection Sunday as we choose life – the Life Christ gave for us all.