Digesting the Many Images of Holy Week and Easter

So, that was the Easter that was. The Holy Week anyway. The season of Easter lasts the full fifty days to Pentecost and not one whit shorter. It’s a bombardment of images from start to finish, with never enough time to digest them before they are swept away barely intact by the next vivid deluge. The branch-ripping crowds of Palm Sunday thus give way to the cursed fig tree, the basin of water for the washing of feet, the broken bread, the wine, and the sheer dead weight of the crucified Christ. But time’s winged chariot is merciful in its reckless speed, and before long we are kindling the new fire of Easter (aided this year by the bracing gusts of Storm Dave) and lighting the Paschal Candle (the contribution of the busy bees) that proclaims the light of the risen Son, shining brightly like the pillar of fire that led the Passover pilgrims over the dry stones of the Sinai wilderness.

The gospel accounts of the resurrection continue to paint pictures just as vivid and plentiful as those of the week before. Angels abound in fashionably shiny clothes, disciples sprint through the back streets of Jerusalem; and while Mark’s account ends with the friends of Jesus disappearing in silent terror, Matthew gives us everything but a brass band – lightning, an earthquake, and Roman soldiers shaking in their boots (sandals perhaps).

But it falls to John to give us the perfect quartet of images in chapter 20 of his gospel. He and Peter racing each other to the empty tomb, then racing again on the joyful journey to faith and understanding; Mary Magdalen, desperately going about the city and ‘seeking him whom her soul loves’ is found and named by the not-yet-ascended Jesus, who is of course the spitting image of a gardener as long as Paradise is being restored. In the third, Jesus discovers his fear-filled friends behind locked doors, and wishes them ‘Peace!’ as he breathes the Holy Spirit on them, just like God breathing life into Adam on another famous first day of the week. He commits them to the work of the Church, to proclaim forgiveness of sins, thus enabling the new starts and new stories that only forgiveness can bring about. Finally, there’s Thomas who was not in church on Easter day and so missed all the fun. But a week later he meets the risen Christ and teaches us the words with which to address him: ‘My Lord and my God!’ It’s what the emperor liked to be called, but faithful Thomas has identified the rightful owner of the titles, and so, with faith established, the first week of the first Easter ends happily.

That said, John’s final chapter (21) sees Jesus warning Peter (and so all of us) about the danger of martyrdom. As Jesus knew, and as men and women of truth and courage (and of every religious faith) have discovered in every age, insisting on life and peace is a dangerous business which the powerful are always liable to resent. Those who begin by simply contemplating the images of Holy Week may well be drawn into them and then find themselves acting them out in their own towns and villages, as they walk their own Emmaus way (Luke 24) towards a joyful Easter faith.

There’s a lot to do! It seems we will need every one of these fifty days to think things through and pray for the way to be made clear, as the images come together and resolve, to fill our hearts and feed our minds. A very happy Easter to you.