For those of us who are Christians, we are in the midst of Holy Week, which, as its name implies, is usually viewed as the highest and most holy time of the liturgical calendar: the culmination of Lent, the final prelude to Easter.
So what happened on this immensely solemn and significant week?
Confirmatory evidence is scant. A few lines in Josephus, a Jewish historian of the period; a few hints in other ancient sources. But according to the Scriptures, on Palm Sunday, which we have just celebrated, Christ entered into Jerusalem to shouts of acclamation from people who saw him as a secular Messiah, a charismatic leader who would help them overthrow the power of the hated Romans. When he chose not to follow that path, the shouts of "Hosannah" would shift, with the speed of mob mentality, to shouts of "crucify him."
On Maundy Thursday, which takes its name from the Latin "mandatum" or mandate, Christ celebrated the Last Supper with his followers, instituting the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, and delivering his mandate, "a new commandment I give you, that you love one another."
He provided the example of the kind of self-sacrificing love he meant by washing the feet of his disciples. He then went out with a few members of his inner circle of followers to pray and prepare for what he knew was coming.
What was coming, the Scriptures relate, was one of his own, Judas the betrayer, at the head of a mob representing the dominant religious establishment of the time, which felt threatened by Christ's teachings.
Jesus was taken into custody and turned over to the Roman authorities to be executed by crucifixion: being nailed to a cross of wood, there to hang until death. This occurred on Good Friday, so called because of the good done for humans by Christ's willing sacrifice.
On Holy Saturday, his body rested in the tomb, but on Sunday morning the women among his followers who came to prepare his body for permanent burial found the tomb opened, the body gone and several of them experienced the risen Christ speaking to them and telling them to return and carry the good news - the literal meaning of "Gospel" - to the rest of his followers. And it was indeed good news. By dying for us and then rising again, Christians believe, Christ overcame the powers of sin and death and opened for human beings the way to life eternal.
I love colorful Easter baskets filled with jelly beans and chocolate bunnies, Easter egg hunts and family dinners, girls in pretty Easter dresses and boys with fresh-scrubbed faces and new Easter ties, and all the other sights and images of the popular celebration of Easter as much as the next person. And I also know that a festival celebrating rebirth - Ostara, which shares its name with the Germanic goddess of spring, Oestre - was celebrated at this time of the year in Europe for centuries if not millennia before the coming of Christianity.
But for me, and for many of us, Easter finds its true meaning in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, in whom the divine and human natures were indissolubly joined and who thus in his person joined Heaven and Earth, who redeemed humankind from sin and death, and blessed us with life everlasting.
However you celebrate, if you do, I wish you a very happy Easter, and for my fellow Christians, I wish you a blessed Holy Week, and a joyful Feast of the Resurrection.
