The coming of a New Year is a time of pondering and planning. As the calendar turns, many of us make goals or resolutions to ensure we move forward in specific areas of life in the upcoming year.
There are many ways to approach resolutions and goal setting. One way is to start with the end in mind. That is, when next December ends, what do we hope we look like and live like? Even more, when our final December ends, perhaps decades from now, what do we hope we look like and live like? Beginning with that end in mind can inspire us to take the small yet significant steps today that will lead to us to eventually fulfill that larger end.
But what is the end that we should have in mind? Picturing the conclusion you desire in your story can be aided by picturing the conclusion Jesus desired to his story. A third of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, a quarter of the Gospel of Luke, and nearly half of the Gospel of John focus on the Holy Week, the final days leading to Jesus’ death. Jesus’ forever existence led inexorably toward this week. Eternity pointed toward these few days. Peter described them in this way: “God chose him as your ransom long before the world began.” (1 Pet. 1:20 NLT). Paul wrote similarly: “In Christ, he chose us before the world was made.” (Eph. 1:4 ERV). Before our world and our stories started, Father, Son and Spirit were planning this Holy Week. In it, we see the clearest picture of who Jesus is. In it, we see the clearest picture of who we can be. It is the ultimate end worth working toward, one which can radically shape the way we begin this year, or any year.
This conclusion in the Gospels has a theme. Much of what Jesus is and does during Holy Week orbits around a single topic: the liberation of love. Jesus reveals in these closing days how spiritually minded people and religiously oriented institutions have held love hostage. They have bound love so that it only needs to be given to those whom they deem deserving and in ways they deem desirable. They limit love based on issues of class, color or creed. This is why we should be suspicious when faith communities today propose that the medicine for what ails the world is “love.” Too often the devout redefine and restrict love so that it becomes more of a hurtful dagger than a healing drug. During Holy Week, Jesus liberates love from the confines of those calling themselves consecrated. He illuminates the privilege and power and prejudice which have led to love being held captive. Jesus fights against those who fetter love based on things like income, race and gender. In these final days, Jesus models the end toward which we are all to strive: love liberated.
On Sunday, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem not on a war horse but on a mule. Jesus believed, contrary to the call of religious zealots, that enemies like the Romans could be shown kindness rather than be killed (Matt 21).
On Monday, Jesus overturns tables in the temple because the pious in power had created a worship system that privileged themselves and disadvantaged people of different races (Mk. 11).
On Tuesday, Jesus speaks out against religious leaders who fostered inequity (“they love seats of honor”) and injustice (“exploiting the weak and helpless”). The Christ condemns the way they applied love liberally to themselves but withheld it from those of other classes (Lk. 20).
On Wednesday, Jesus’ attempts to liberate love from the biased hands of religion are met with the ultimate resistance. To better enable their incarceration of love, they now incarcerate love’s incarnation, Jesus himself. (Matt. 21).
On Thursday Jesus washes the feet of his followers, showing that no degree of love is too great. No one is too lofty to act in the lowliest loving way. And no one is too lowly or or lost to receive the loftiest loving act (Jn. 13).
On Friday, Jesus continues his revolutionary revelation of liberated love–he loves all by giving all on the cross. (Lk. 23) No class, creed or color will escape the crucified grasp of our Savior’s outstretched arms.
On Saturday, political and faith leaders set guards over Jesus’ tomb. This is another, futile, step to incarcerate love’s incarnation. (Matt. 27)
And on Sunday, Jesus explodes from the tomb, proving that no prejudice, power or position seeking to lesson love’s reach has any hope at all of success. (Lk. 24).
The Holy Week centers on this one inescapable theme. In his closing days, Jesus offered his life to liberate love from the hands of people and institutions that had satisfied themselves with an anemic and inert love. Freed by the sacrifice of Jesus, love was now empowered to once again flow unhindered and abundant.
This end seems a most appropriate end to consider as the New Year opens. This is the end we should begin with. Holy Week fleshes out the truth of Paul’s words in Galatians: “the only thing that matters is faith working through love.” (Gal. 5:6 NET) Let this be your resolution this New Year. Imitate. Mirror. Embody the liberated love revealed in the closing days of the story of Jesus. Make that the goal for your story. This year. And every year.
