Thoughts on Holy Week

This week has been mercifully manageable...I've been working hard at work, but leaving by 7 and meeting up with people for dinner the last two days.  That never happens, and it's been wonderful.  Also, Mr. Squire is on spring break, so the timing of my "slowdown" is perfect.  Or, God's timing of my "slowdown," I should say.  Thank the Lord.

As I wrote earlier, Lent this year has been largely an afterthought.  But this week, it seems God has purposely and obviously cleared away a lot more mental and emotional space for me to reflect on Holy Week and the cross.  I am thankful for His patience and forbearance in this way.  On Sunday, we watched another clip from the Jesus Storybook Bible.  I actually love watching those video clips because they're meant for kids, so the stories are told in a different way--one that doesn't use the same words and phrases as the Bible (so my mind doesn't just gloss over them as "been there, heard that").  

I was struck in particular this week when the narrator spoke about how Jesus pleaded with His Father in heaven to take from Jesus the bitter cup before Him:  taking upon Himself the punishment of all the sins ever committed in the world, being utterly separated from His Father.  I needed that reminder of the centrality to my faith of Jesus's death on the cross.  So often I tend to leave Jesus out of the equation:  I pray to God the Father (but often not in Jesus's name, completely leaving out the mediator) and tend to be pretty aware of the Holy Spirit's presence in my life.  But Jesus?  I confess that sometimes I don't know what to do with Him.

It seems counterintuitive, even silly, I know.  Each Person within the Trinity is essential to our faith, and Jesus is by no means the least of these.  Without Jesus's death on the cross, there would be no freedom or life.  Without His obedient and loving sacrifice for the world and for me, I would have no reason to hope for anything at all.  I would continue to bear the weight and guilt of my sins, forever.  Why does Jesus's death not mean more to me?   The amazing story truly has become too familiar, but I hate that it is so.  I want that to change.

Mr. Squire and I dated for two years and eight months before we got married.  The last two years of that period were done long-distance between Boston and New York.  The distance was hard, and when we were in the same place, we never took each other's presence for granted.  We've now been married for almost two years, and that sense of gratitude has not yet faded.  I still get really excited whenever I see Mr. Squire, I relish the fact that we get to fall asleep in the same place and not have to converse over the phone (with poor reception, at that) or make a six-hour (door-to-door) trip every other weekend just to see each other.  We get to fully share friends, stories, experiences, and life, and I'm pretty sure that not for a single moment, I take any of that for granted.  

In every way imaginable, the gift of life conferred on me through the cross is infinitely more precious, life-altering, and life-giving.  Why don't I value it more?  My prayer for the remaining days of Holy Week--and beyond--is that I would more fully grasp the magnitude of Jesus's death and resurrection, the enormity of the cost to Jesus, the consequent implications of His great love for me, and a closer walk not just with the Father and the Spirit, but also with Jesus.