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| Source: omhksea.org |
We accompany Christ to Golgotha during Holy Week:
As the Lord was going to His voluntary passion,He said to the Apostles on the way,"Behold, we go up to Jerusalem,and the Son of Man shall be delivered up, as it is written of Him."Come, therefore, let us also go with Him, purified in mind ...
(Praises of Holy Monday)
We make this journey to Golgotha in our liturgical Holy Week services and in the relative safety of our lives here in America. But we can rest assured that the people of Ukraine - and other people around the world (as "wars and rumors of wars" continue to proliferate) - are experiencing a genuine "Golgotha reality," as they continue to be mercilessly assaulted by bombs and drones on a daily basis. In Ukraine, making a decision to leave one's home for a Holy Week church service can be a dangerous one. While Ukraine has proposed an "Easter truce" for next weekend, Russia has intensified its bombing of civilian targets, recently killing six civilians and wounding 40 others. President Zelensky has called this an "Easter escalation." We have yet to discover what Russia will agree to for next weekend - the "Orthodox Easter" as the press describes it. None of this killing is being tempered by a Christian consciousness, apparently.
It must be stressed that the bombing of civilian infrastructure targets is against international laws and norms, and is essentially a war crime. This is true for any country that makes the fatal and illegal decision to bomb another country's civilian targets. We all know that "war is hell;" so to further destroy innocent civilians is to violate every norm of a civilized state. These are crimes against humanity, and no amount of misguided Christian rhetoric can hide that ugly truth.
Holy Week reveals the great truth of divine "power" through powerlessness. That is the way of Christ, as He "empties Himself" on the road to Golgotha. That is the way that we embrace when we leave our homes and drive to the church to immerse ourselves in the intense services of Holy Week. As we chanted yesterday evening: "Let your order be contrary to that of the Gentiles ..." It is important that we remain consistent in our Christian confession of faith in Christ. What we encounter and hear in the church through the services of Holy Week, needs to taken with us into our daily lives as a vision of life that is worthy of the great name of "Christian."
As I have written before, as we pray for peace and wait on God, apparently God is waiting on us to come to our senses and "turn" and become decent human beings. Yet, with God, "all things are possible.:
