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Holy Week @ GPC & The Fire at Notre Dame

The images truly are sad to see.  I saw where several friends had posted pictures on Facebook of a visit to Paris and the cathedral of Notre Dame before the fire:  a married couple holding each other with the spire in the background, a young man with his students with the impressive structure off in the distance.

Perhaps most tragic of all to me was a 360-degree image of the beautiful interior before the fire, it's stained-glass windows bathing the stones with purple-light from floor to ceiling. 

In a matter of moments, a project that was intended to preserve the beauty of this holy place became a terrible nightmare as the fires engulfed the old wooden beams and blasted out the rose window.

The tragedy is only multiplied as a result of this being Holy Week.  A rumored piece of Jesus' crown of thorns was housed in the spire that collapsed yesterday.  I haven't heard of its fate yet, but it's likely gone now.

I see another connection to Holy Week in this sad story. 

For all sorts of reasons, so many of us were drawn to this news yesterday.  Reporters described men and women standing on street corners in the heart of the city singing Ave Maria's and praying together, while others just stood crying.  Those with intimate experiences with the building were motivated to post those pictures.  And even those who would describe themselves as non-religious felt sadness, as if a bit of holiness was being lost from our world.

This, of course, is precisely what it was like on the day when Jesus was hung from a cross there on Golgotha.  Jesus' closest friends as well as distant bystanders were drawn together into an experience of heartache.  Certain historical events pull us together and make us realize how interconnected everything is.

Jesus' own death began in a place that no one could predict.  The mood on Palm Sunday was one of hope and the joy of liberation.  But, a spark of malice and aggression set things in motion as Jesus bounced back and forth between the tension of Jerusalem and the sanctuary of Bethany.  By late Thursday night, the fires of antagonism were set.  Jesus' captors came to take him with torches in hand under the cover of night.  As Thursday's darkness became Friday's early morning, all Jesus' disciples could do is watch from a disatance as his body was ravaged and then weakened before their eyes.  They no doubt gasped when his head finally collapsed against his wounded body.

Then, like the mourners on Parisian streets, they could only cry or stand there in silence.

But, the thing about fires is that they can lead to new life, as hard as the death may be.

Something new can come from ashes, even death.

So, this Holy Week the events are set in motion again.  We are now participants in a story larger than us, captured by news that comes to us. 

It doesn't matter what our relation to Jesus has been up to this point. 

It doesn't matter if it's been years since we paid him a visit.

It doesn't matter if we have deep ties of significance with him or if we have no connection at all up to this point.

This week, we have the chance to come near again to the central moments of his passion:  his final meal with his disciples, his agonizing hours on Friday, the stillness of Saturday, and the unexpected, uncontained joy of Easter when he burst forth from the ruins of death, making tragedy a captive to his own plans and purposes for redemption.

Friends, I hope you will join me this week in being drawn again to the news of Jesus' passion for you.

It is full of heartache.  It is full of sorrow. 

But it ends in glory.  It reminds us that Jesus is coming again to make all things new.

And that's a message we all need to hear.

~Pastor Wes

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