Poured Out into Holy Week
Click here to Mark 14:1-11 We are inching closer to Holy Week and hearing again what is often called the Passion Narrative. The first week in April we will read again the chapters that record Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, crucifixion and resurrection. Thanks to Mel Gibson’s film a few years ago, the word Passion brings to mind negative thoughts of blaming Jewish people for Jesus’ death and a glorification (even fixation) of violence. To be sure, what we will read over the coming days is violent. It is a violence that is echoed every night in our news: whether it is a gunman in France or racial tension between police and different ethnicity or the YouTube video on Uganda’s Kony being viewed over 84 million times. And because violence is around us, we sometimes prefer for the church to be a sanctuary; a place set apart where for at least a few fleeting moments we don’t have to face the brokenness or violence of the world. For a few minutes we can rest. For a few mi