Exploring the ‘holiness’ of the Holy Week

By Herbert Vego

ANYBODY holy, according to Mr. Webster, is “exalted or worthy of complete devotion.”

This week is Holy Week, the most sacred time of the year for Christians who remember the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, his betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection.

“Holy Week” is a term used to denote the final week of Jesus’ life as chronicled in the New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is highlighted by four holy days: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.

Jesus was ethnically a Jew brought up in Nazareth. As a student of the Torah — the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy which are also in the Old Testament of the Bible — he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and preached religion (Luke 4:16 and Luke 21:37).

In a sense, Christianity is the “extension” of Judaism, although the Jews do not consider Jesus the Messiah or Savior.

The Holy Week illustrates the “fickleness” of Jesus’ followers on his last days. Yesterday (March 29) was Palm Sunday, commemorating this triumphant, yet humble, arrival on a donkey just days before his crucifixion.

He was greeted by a crowd waving palm branches and laying their robes on the ground to honor him.

Maundy Thursday brings back to mind that day when tension between Jesus and the religious leaders rose to fever pitch.

The people who worshipped Jesus on Palm Sunday — so most Christian preachers preach — were the same ones who cried out for his death sentence on Good Friday.

While the crowd might have really loved Jesus, the leaders of the religious establishment hated him because he directly threatened their authority, exposed their hypocrisy, and challenged their interpretations of the law.

If there is a lesson for us to be learned from that irony, it’s the fickleness of mankind. We change opinions and perceptions in accordance with unfolding circumstances. In the case of Jesus, the crowd got mad in response to the Jewish leaders who had branded Jesus “a false Messiah.”

Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper, where Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, symbolizing humility, service, and a new command to love one another.

What’s so “good” about Good Friday when it was the day when Jesus was horribly tortured to death?

Good Friday adherents remind us that Jesus and his disciples were Jews and used the Jewish calendar, in which the day’s start is marked not with the sunrise, but with the sunset. So, if Jesus was crucified on Friday, that would be the first day. Sunset on Friday would be the beginning of the second day; and sunset Saturday, the beginning of the third day or Easter Sunday.

“Easter” in Easter Sunday — according to Encyclopedia Britannica, sprang from a pagan origin, referring to Austron, the goddess of fertility and sunrise, whose festival was celebrated in the spring. No wonder some Christian churches celebrate “Easter sunrise service,” delivering the promise that when Christ returns, his believers will rise from the dead to live with him forever.

Easter Sunday tells the story of the women who went to the tomb but could not find his body there. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen!” (Luke 24:1-6).

“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 17-19).

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OIL PRICE HIKE MAY AFFECT POWER RATES

WORD is out that electricity rates could increase by PHP 5 per kWh due to disruptions in oil supply that have already doubled prices of gasoline and diesel.

The President, however, has declared, through Executive Order No. 110, a state of national energy emergency which could prevent so much hike.

Since coal is the cheapest source of energy, coal-fired power plants are enjoined to maximize their operational capacity.

This would also be good timing for geothermal and solar plants to do the same.

On the part of MORE Power as distribution utility in Iloilo City, President/CEO Roel Z. Castro said it is still the cheapest power distributor in Western Visayas.