Holy Week from the contemplations of Rev. Bridgette Siepker

​by John-Peter Gernaat

As promised in the April newsletter this article is repeated with the last days of Holy Week added.

We experience the Holy Nights at the time of the birth of Jesus as being connected with the month of the year. We can experience the events of Holy Week connected with human destiny.

In the southern hemisphere, we are in Autumn and the days are getting darker. Nature does not mirror the renewal of life that is celebrated at Easter. In the northern hemisphere, it is the opposite, and the mirror between nature and the renewal of life in the Resurrection is visible. Is it possible for us to hold both of these images within us simultaneously in balance?

Nature in the southern hemisphere can teach us something of the path towards death, the turning of the leaves, the ripening of fruit and the surrendering of seeds into the dark of earth. Holy Week is the path to death; it leads to the Deed of Golgotha. This was part of Christ’s time on earth. The possibility of Christ being on earth had been there from the beginning, yet the Deed was not accomplished until it was accomplished. What might have been the state of the spiritual world at this time?

Before this Deed of Christ there was a way of being for humanity; after the Deed of Christ there was another way. There was no going back. The Deed of Christ was done for all humanity.

In Holy Week, Christ walked the way to death. How do we walk this way? Resurrection is possible only after the process of death. We can experience resurrection more clearly in our lives if we can walk this way of death.

Each day of Holy Week has a particular signature of how to walk this way of death. Becoming conscious of this signature leads us to approach this way of death in a conscious manner.

Beginning on Palm Sunday, there is a deliberate act of entering Jerusalem. Christ is saying ‘yes’ to what lies ahead. The great welcome that he receives does not deter him from the road ahead.

In the picture of the palm tree, we have a plant that has no branches, only a trunk. At the top of the tree is the heart of three from which new fronds arise. It is a picture of a tree that raises its heart to the light of the sun.

From Palm Sunday, we see a frenzy of chaos and in the midst, Christ, undeterred, travels the road into this week. In this week we hear that Christ is in the Father. How may we receive the will of the Father in our lives? It is through the higher self that we access the will of the Father.

On Holy Monday, the day of the Moon, we are confronted with the story of the cursed fig tree. This is not so much a physical tree and the representation of a spiritual way that has ended and is no longer valid. The new way is clearly declared by Christ; it is faith. We can contemplate what this looks like.

There is a second activity connected with Holy Monday, the deliberate activity of clearing the Temple. Interest and active participation bring about change.

Holy Tuesday is a very active day with every section of society questioning Christ in order to find fault with him. It is the day of Mars and decisive activity. Christ answers the challenges in a way that points to the incorrect thinking of the questioner. He responds with parables. Some of the greatest teaching given by Christ is done on this day. We can experience hope in the change of thinking needed.

Holy Wednesday is the middle of this Holy Week. Nothing is said of the day. It is as if something ends, and in the evening something new can open up. In the evening we confront the deed of devotion of Mary in anointing the feet of Christ. Devotion for Christ arises out of love for Christ. We encounter two people who have been with Christ for an equal period of time, yet they have very different approaches to the developing way to death. Mary has developed devotion, while Judas has developed another way and walks out. Both of these ways live in each of us, and we can become aware of them. We can also contemplate the sacrifice of Mary, which angered Judas, because it is only through sacrifice that human destiny moves forward.

Maundy Thursday. This again is a day where the activity is primarily focused on the night. Thursday is influenced by Jupiter which is connected with the forces of life. Jesus washes the feet of the disciples demonstrating our future as humanity. It is through servitude towards each other that we arrive at a fully christened being. During the Last Supper Jesus (as presented by John in his Gospel) speaks extensively to the disciples about his relationship to the Father and to humanity. He speaks the last of the “I am”-statements, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” and “I am the vine”. Then follows the giving of his life forces as he unites them with the Bread and the Wine and initiates the Eucharist. Christ has given his life-forces into the sphere of the earth. He walks out of the Upper Room with his disciples spent of all his life-forces. What follows Christ Jesus achieves through the power of his will. The kiss of Judas lends Him life-forces to continue and, in one of the Gospels, the young man who runs away naked is another source of life-forces loaned to Jesus.

The Good Friday contemplation was a focus on the complete mission of Christ.

On Holy Saturday we started the artistic activity without a contemplation on the day that occurs in a realm invisible to the human eye. Our Creed reveals the significance of the deeds of Christ on this day.

On Easter Sunday, the octave of Palm Sunday, the question can arise in us: What can I acknowledge? And in acknowledging this, what changes for me? We take note of the devotion of the women who go at daybreak to the tomb. They speak of the insurmountable obstacle they must overcome to fulfil their task of anointing the body, yet even though they do not know how they will roll back the stone, they are not deterred in their devotion to fulfil this deed for Jesus. What obstacles do we allow to deter us from our goals?

Now follows a period of forty days of Easter. This is the number of gestation and of initiation.