Holy Week starts out in a big whirlwind of festival: Jesus making his way into Jerusalem to the adoration of the crowds. His whole ministry led up to this grand entrance, the entrance of a King. But it was only the beginning.
Jesus shares a meal with his closest friends, and he is betrayed. He spends the night in a garden where those keeping watch cannot stay awake. He is taken into custody and denied three times. He is condemned, tortured, and crucified.
Could anyone in the jubilant crowds at his entrance into the city have foreseen that this would happen? Were the people in that first crowd the same people calling for his crucifixion? None of it seems to make any sense: why would Jesus, knowing this would happen, allow it to be so? Why the triumphant entrance, knowing what was to come?
Our faith is profoundly difficult to comprehend. Today, Good Friday, we come to terms with the death of our God, and there is no real way to make sense of it. We have theologies about why Jesus died and what his death accomplished. But in our hearts we will never be able to fully comprehend it. The love of God in this act of sacrifice is too great for the human heart to grasp.
