Experiencing Holy Week: By his wounds
“Pay attention to what happens in the next few days. Pay attention to what goes on around you and within you. Pay attention to the water on your feet and the roughness of the towel in your hand. Pay attention to the softness of the bread and the sting of the wine in your throat. Pay attention to the brusqueness of the kiss and the splinters of the cross. Pay attention to the coldness of the tomb and the terror that clutches your heart. Pay attention to the brightness of the dawning light and the life that bursts forth.” Br. James Koester, Society of Saint John the Evangelist Daily Emails, ssje.org
I remember reading this one Holy Week when one of my childhood wounds had been painfully opened. My “not good enough” button was pushed. As I came out of the cloud of humiliation, I read this piece about Jesus’ wounds. In some very, very small way I had experienced a wound.
The “brightness of the dawning light” is indeed knowing I had been experiencing Holy Week fully with the woundedness, the sadness, the humiliation as well as the joy that I anticipated. I remember many years again another Holy Week when I had a complication from a medical procedure I performed that week. I still remember the sadness I felt for the harm I caused to my patient instead of bringing healing. I could only imagine how my patient must have felt. I realized how difficult it was and is to accept that we are human and make mistakes and accept responsibility for our mistakes.
Today I also experience life bursting worth as I try to reach out of myself and reach out to someone else I know today who has been wounded, for yesterday I was very painfully reminded what it is like. Buechner talks about what a difference it makes in our suffering knowing that Jesus not only is always beside us in our suffering but he suffered himself as well.
We identify with Jesus. He identifies with us. We identify with others. He heals our wounds as we reach out to others. We are constantly called to community where we learn to accept our humanness, our sins and mistakes, to be forgiven, healed, loved, and blessed.
In community there is redemption and resurrection.
Joanna joannaseibert.com