“Not because
we have made peace this day.
Not because
we have treated one another as our self.
Not because
we have walked the earth with reverence today.
But because there is mercy
because there is grace
because your Spirit has not been taken from us
we come
still thirsting for peace
still longing to love
still hungering for wholeness.”
~John Philip Newell

As a teenager I remember wondering why we call the week before Easter Holy Week. In my mind at that time ‘holy’ meant something perfect, something beyond every day life, something beautiful and other worldly. It seemed odd to me that we would use that word to describe the events of the last week of Jesus’ life.

Now when I think of holy, I see it much differently. To be ‘holy’ to me now, means for something to be more whole, more its fullest expression of what it was created to be. This has particular meaning to me this Lent with our church’s theme of ‘Breaking’. Over these almost 40 days, I have been privileged to be present to people telling their stories of brokenness. In the telling I have also heard the many ways they have been transformed, mended, healed, been made whole. It has been a rich and profound time for our community.

As a culture, I believe, we do not often have the opportunity to be truthful about the ways in which we are broken, the ways in which we have contributed to the brokenness of others, the ways in which the systems and institutions we have created contribute to brokenness in the world. It is our practice to slide along the surface, diverting our eyes and our hearts from what is unpleasant or painful. Even though in some place within us we know this is unhealthy, we convince ourselves that it is easier to live our days, and in turn our lives, in this pattern. In the process we are often surprised when some word or encounter then comes out sideways, a word spoken in resentment or a comment meant to injure.

But my experience of this Lent is that more and more stories have been told in truth in our community. Once people begin to speak openly about the places in which they are broken, a slow net of safety begins to be built. Vulnerability begins to find a home. Truth telling loses its threat. Our brothers and sisters in recovery known this wisdom.

Which brings me to Holy Week. As we begin once again to tell the stories of Jesus gathering with his friends for a last supper, of his arrest and execution, of his affirmations and admonitions to all those around him, it is impossible not to see how brokenness and vulnerability and truth telling are all a part of being holy. In each act, he was becoming more whole, more of who he was created to be. Our celebration on Easter then becomes the shining alleluia. An alleluia to which we are not only called to sing but to become.

In our Lenten devotional one writer titled their reflection ‘Broken for Good’. Perhaps that is what makes it appropriate to call this week holy. The One who breathed us all into being did so, I believe, for good. Not for perfection or some other worldly living but for this world with all its flaws, in this body with its aches and pains and failings. Each of us, even Jesus, was broken for good. In it all God’s presence shines through making us whole and holy.

For the healing of the world.