The Week Before Holy Week (Fifth Sunday in Lent)

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Today, we begin the “week before Holy Week.” When you’re a Pastor, you use this week to make sure that everything is more or less set for Holy Week, so that you can spend Holy Week simply helping people worship. You don’t need extra projects and you don’t open up any can of worms that you really don’t need to!

But, stuff always comes up. And in the last couple of years, I’ve begun to develop a bit of a phobia about what might happen on the week before Holy Week. Two years ago – on the week before Holy Week – I was pretty sure I had things more or less together, but I was tired. So I headed to bed early, but for some reason as walked through a downstairs hallway, I looked up and saw a wet spot on the ceiling. And I thought, “that shouldn’t be wet.” It’s on the first floor, and it hasn’t been raining anyway. And there are no pipes directly overhead. But as I listened closely, I heard a faint “pffft” coming from inside the wall in the closet next to me. And I realized that I had a pinhole leak! I thanked God that I noticed it before I went to bed and came down to a flooded hallway, but I then had to spend several days of the week before Holy Week fixing plumbing in my house. 

Last year, I again thought I had things pretty well under control. But one morning, I got up, got coffee and let Phoenix out into the yard. And as I did that, I looked to the back of the yard and saw that about 30 feet of my back fence had pretty much collapsed – held up only by my compost bin. Phoenix is pretty good about respecting barriers, but the fence was going to fall down completely if I didn’t do something about it right away. And so I spent several days on the week before Holy Week putting in new fence posts and fixing the fence.

So this year, I was wondering, “what’s gonna happen now on the week before Holy Week?” Well, another piece of fence is falling down, but I braced it and it’ll hold for a few weeks. And besides, I’ve got construction going on at my house, and that’s more than enough for the “week before Holy Week.” Except that – several of the contractors who just finished roofing and framing my house left me enough material to replace the rotting roof on my shed. So I thought, “hey, I’ll hold onto the stuff and do it in a couple of months when things slow down a little.” But as I considered this, it occurred to me that right now I have a big honkin’ construction dumpster in my front yard where I can ditch all the old roofing. And if I wait a couple of months, it won’t be there.

So this year, on the week before Holy Week, I’m gonna spend a couple of days replacing the shed roof. I really don’t want to (at all!) but I also realize that if I don’t act now, I’ll miss an opportunity that I won’t ever have again.

I tell you all of these stories, because today’s Gospel reading also occurs on the week before Holy Week. I mean, literally in John’s narrative, Jesus has arrived at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus just before Palm Sunday when he enters Jerusalem. It really was the week before Holy Week.

And for Jesus and his friends, the week before Holy Week was also the week before Passover, so it was also a time that nobody needed any extra projects, and when everybody was trying to simply focus on the chaos of the moment.

After all, the week before Holy Week was the week that Jerusalem swelled with pilgrims coming for the Passover. Traffic was a mess! Historians estimate that Jerusalem’s population that week went from about 2500 to over 10,000. Also, because of that, this was the week every year when Pontius Pilate rode into town with 1000 extra Roman soldiers and camped out at the Fortress Antonia which was literally adjacent to the Temple Mount just in case anybody got any funny ideas about insurrections.

Besides this, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead just a few weeks before, and John tells us that because of that, the Temple authorities were actively seeking to have Jesus put to death. Oh, and also we find out in the verses just beyond this morning’s reading that they decided to also try to kill Lazarus, because it was on account of him that people were believing in Jesus.

Mary had her hands full in the week before Holy Week, with Passover preparation, dealing with political upheaval in town, and wondering who she had to watch out for who might be trying to kill her brother yet again. She didn’t need any more projects or stuff to do.

And yet, on the week before Holy Week, Jesus and his disciples – who had been staying out of town because of the threats against him – arrive at her home. But Mary and Martha don’t ask them to come back next week. Jesus is there with them now. And so they throw a dinner for everybody. And Mary – still deeply grateful to Jesus for raising her brother – takes a pound of perfume, which cost the equivalent of a year’s salary, and pours it over Jesus’ feet.

Mary totally stopped what she was doing and focused on the opportunity to be with Jesus and thank Jesus. And it wasn’t because she had nothing to do, or because chaos wasn’t swirling all around her. She did it because she saw that God was giving her an opportunity that she might never get again. And so even though it was the week before Holy Week, and even in the midst of other important things, she refocused on something even more important.

And while we often remember Judas complaining about Mary, none of the other disciples came to Mary’s defense. Only Jesus points out that Mary has, in fact, taken advantage of an opportunity that will never come again – the opportunity to anoint Jesus for burial.

I’m not sure Mary thought that’s what she was doing. But I do think Mary was unique in the cast of disciples that day because in spite of the chaos of the week before Holy Week, she didn’t let the chaos distract her from recognizing a unique opportunity Jesus presented and then being willing to stop what she was doing and take advantage of that opportunity.

Now, the week before Holy Week may not be a week that’s particularly busy or stressful for you, although if you’re a CPA this year it’s also the week before Tax Day so maybe it is! But Mary is a good example for all of us, especially when we face whatever time in our year feels like “the week before Holy Week.”

It’s often tempting to put on blinders and just get through the chaos and the busy-ness that faces us, whether it’s the week before Holy Week or whatever times in your life seem filled with chaos and distraction; or with difficulty and fear; or with upheaval and uncertainty. Honestly, there are lot of those times for many of us lately.

And in those times – when we really don’t need or want any more projects, activities or things to think about – Jesus sometimes presents us with opportunities that we may never get again. Perhaps it’s an opportunity to serve in a special way; or to spend time with a friend or loved one; or to do something that just seems too extravagant for the moment, but really needs to be done now or we may never get the chance again.

You know, the whole Biblical story starts out not with nothing but with “chaos”. And it’s into the midst of the chaos that God acts and life begins. 

And it’s often the case in the story of Jesus that it’s in the midst of pain and difficulty and even the chaos of the week before Holy Week that Jesus shows up and brings new life to a situation. And often, he does that by presenting opportunities nobody was looking for or thought were possible. And that’s still often what Jesus does in our lives.

Now my hope for all of you is that Jesus’ opportunities in your life feel more like Jesus showing up for dinner than the sound of a pinhole leak!

But on this week before Holy Week – and whatever other weeks in your life may seem like times when you really don’t need anything else to do or any distractions – be alert to how Jesus may be showing up in your life. Watch for opportunities from God that you may not have imagined. And be willing (and this is often the hardest part for me!) to stop what you’re doing and focus on the new thing that Jesus is putting before you.

Amen.