The deep breath of Holy Week is building momentum. It is the silence before a hailstorm. It is the darkness before a downpour. I feel the momentum building in my soul, and I fear the rain of the next two days.
I fear the emotions that will rise when the colors of the altar are removed and the candles extinguished and emptiness and darkness fill the sanctuary. It will be as though the life of the Lenten season has withered and died. And that is the whole point of this week--to come to the end of it in mourning, but I fear that I will cry. I will cry as if there is no hope, no life, no resurrection. And in that moment, what I will truly be fearing is that hopelessness, that lifelessness.
But I embrace this fear, this moment of hopelessness and lifelessness. I embrace it because it brings a gift. It brings the gift of One Who Is Resurrected. And this Resurrected One brings a new kind of hope and a new kind of life. It brings the dawning of not just a new day but a new week. The sun after the dark clouds. The rainbow after the hailstones.
So breathe deeply, O Holy Week, I embrace the end in order to find the beginning.
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