Something that's always struck me is how Holy Week is punctuated by simple things.
It starts with Jesus' Triumphal Entry – no trumpets or military might but simply a donkey and some palm leaves. Jesus is betrayed for a few simple coins. When he gathers for the Last Supper, he institutes the Church's central sacrament with the simplest fare – bread and wine. And there is little simpler than two lengths of wood formed into a cross.
These simple things are the props that help us visualise the week of all weeks – part of a narrative that not only changed the course of human history but changed the story of eternity.
In the humility of Jesus on a donkey; in the empathy of Jesus at his betrayal; in the peace Jesus exuded at the Lord's Supper and in the power of Jesus' submission to death on a cross we find the simple made profound. The most wonderful thing about Holy Week is that in its events not only were these simple things transformed: so too are our ordinary lives in the promises of Jesus.
The Rev Adrian Dorrian
Vicar, Lecale Area Mission Partnership
Church of Ireland Diocese of Down and Dromore
