Next Sunday Christians in the West begin Holy Week.  Next Sunday is Palm/Passion Sunday. Orthodox Christians observe the same calendar one week later this year.

The heart of the entire Christian Year is Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.  My favorite service is the Easter Vigil – begun in darkness on Saturday night, initiating the Great Fifty Days of Easter.

All of this is ritual and tradition grounded in Christian history and practice.  It is meaningful and precious to Christians.  But it does not have the same value or meaning to those who practice another religion or no religion at all.

What might a non-Christian or a secular Humanist discover and value from the Christian story of Holy Week?

 

Fate and popularity is fickle.  Holy Week opens with the high and low of Palm/Passion Sunday.  We process into church waving palm branches singing joyful “Halleluiahs!” as we recall Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  But the mood shifts quickly into the story of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, torture, death and burial.  The same people who welcomed Jesus soon called for his death.  Politicians, coaches, lovers, and friends often live under the same fickle sword.

 

Religion challenges politics.  Jesus was executed as an enemy of the state.  Although he was a religious leader, his teaching challenged the political powers to the point that they convicted him of treason and rebellion.  Jesus stands in a long line of prophets who continually challenge political injustice and oppression.  Authentic religion must speak to politics.  The enduring values that religion should bring to the political debate are the fundamental humanitarian values of justice and liberation, with particular concern for the poor and vulnerable.  This is purpose that can unite Christian and atheist in common cause.

 

Religious authority that is in bed with political authority becomes compromised and dangerous.  Pontius Pilate appointed the High Priest Caiaphas who served throughout Pilate’s ten-year term.  Obviously they got along well.  When religion is too close to political power, religion becomes compromised.  When politics covers itself with religious justification, politics becomes oppressive.

 

Authority easily gets stuck.  All authority and power easily becomes stuck.  It is hard for the ensconced and successful to hear the new and challenging.  Jesus didn’t fit the religious or political orthodoxies.  How deaf are we within our comfortable and settled beliefs and traditions?

 

Capital punishment is hubris.  Until human beings are infallible and omniscient, capital punishment is beyond our just capacities.  How many more innocent people will we execute? 

 

Torture is an abomination.  Part of Jesus’ punishment was state authorized torture.  Even if human beings were infallible and omniscient, torture would still be an abomination.

 

Mobs happen.  Beware of mob mentality.  It is a form of group insanity and violence.  Beware of leaders who manipulate mob psychology for violent purpose.  The other is still our brother.

 

When you are perplexed by someone outside of your comfort zone, look at the fruits of their labor.  Jesus scandalized the sensitivities of so many of his contemporaries, yet the effect of his work was to feed, heal and reconcile people, especially the poor and marginalized.  Years later Paul said that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against such things.”  F.D. Maurice said that we are most often right in what we affirm and wrong in what we deny.  When you find yourself in conflict with someone, let go of the energy of denial and try to discover what it is they affirm.  You may discover the fruit of their spirit and find common ground.

 

Life comes out of death.  Every major religion teaches that dying and rising is the way and the path of transformation.  We see similar images in the cycles of seasons and the story of a seed.  Deep within human consciousness is the desire to give ourselves to something greater than ourselves – to die to self in order to live more expansively.  We all seek to bring meaning out of suffering and new life out of sacrifice and death.  One measure of our humanity is our ability to transcend suffering and our capacity for altruism.  The story of Jesus is one of those great stories.  It’s not just for Christians.  It’s a story anyone can treasure.