By midweek, the pace of Holy Week begins to shift. The jubilant echoes of Palm Sunday are still faintly present, but the shadows grow longer. We move from celebration into confrontation—facing not only the betrayal and sorrow that the Gospel narratives present, but the complexity within our own hearts. Holy Week does not rush to its conclusion. It slows us down, invites us to notice what we’d rather avoid, and asks us to remain present in the tension.
This is not a comfortable space. By Wednesday, the Gospel begins to speak of Judas. Of silence and suspicion around the table. Of gestures misunderstood, loyalty questioned, and love met with fear. It is tempting to keep a distance from these moments—to read them as history, resolved and remote. But the stories persist because they speak to something enduring. They echo in the spaces where trust has been broken, where friendship falters, and where we hesitate to stand beside the vulnerable.
At the heart of this week is a truth we often resist: we all carry a capacity for both courage and cowardice, for compassion and indifference. We are the ones who sing Hosanna, and we are the ones who look away. The discomfort of Holy Week lies not only in its unfolding events, but in the mirror it holds up. And yet, that very discomfort can be holy ground.
What would it mean to stay with this week—not as spectators, but as those who walk its path with intention? To allow the narrative to move through us, not as a script already known, but as a living encounter that still has something to teach us?
Perhaps we feel weary. The world offers no shortage of grief. There is violence in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine. Families displaced. Children lost. Creation wounded. It can be difficult to know how to respond, or whether our efforts matter at all. Holy Week does not give easy answers. But it does offer a frame: a way of holding sorrow that refuses to let go of love.
Christ does not bypass pain. He enters it. Fully, honestly, and without retreat. He meets the brokenness of the world not with force, but with presence. And through that presence, something is transformed—not in spectacle, but in solidarity. Not in triumph, but in tenderness.
This is the scandal and the beauty of the week: that God chooses this way. That vulnerability is not a failure, but the shape of divine love. That redemption begins not with escape, but with accompaniment.
So we walk slowly. We resist the urge to skip to Easter morning. The garden must still be entered. The table must still be set. The washing of feet must still be done. There is something here for us, even now.