In Time

Holy Week marks the transition from Lent to Easter. Every year, the church walks through the story of Christ’s death and resurrection as if we don’t know how the story ends. I find the liturgical rhythm beautiful in her simplicity: no matter how well we think we know this story, we need to be reminded every year of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection.

Throughout Lent, I’ve been mulling over the idea of time and the healing process. “Time heals all wounds” is a tired cliche. And yet, we don’t have to look beyond our own bodies to see this truth. It takes an instant to injure yourself; A stubbed toe, a broken a bone, or a profoundly traumatic injury all occur in mere seconds. I saw this phenomenon daily as a hospital chaplain: lives were changed in an instant and people could never wrap their minds around how their loved one was alive one minute and then gone the next. This Lent, I’ve been wondering why injury is so easy and healing is so slow.

The pace of Holy Week doesn’t help me find an answer to this question. Within a week, Jesus entered Jerusalem, was imprisoned, executed, buried, and alive again. I’ve never seen a full transformation so abrupt in my own life!

The rhythm of the liturgical calendar invites us to reflect on where we were the last time we heard this story. As I folded my palm branches into crosses on Sunday afternoon, I was taken back to sitting in my apartment in New Haven last Palm Sunday folding palms. I brought two to the hospital to give to the hospital priest and another colleague, both of whom I loved dearly.

There’s something innate in all of us that resists change. Injury, illness, separation, loss, and grief can force us to shift our sense of self, leaving us feeling unmoored. Life easily lifts our anchor as we’re asleep on the boat, and we wake up to find that we’ve drifted out to sea. Paddling back feels impossible. I often get impatient with the swiftness of change and my own slowness to adjust, heal, or reorient. I can’t say for sure how I make it through, but in looking back after time has passed I see how far I’ve come. I can’t put my finger on the exact work of the Spirit to knit us back together–or into something new entirely–in the midst of change, but I’ve seen it happen in my own life too many times to count. I trust that God, in time, will carry me into the future.

As I look back across the Holy Weeks of years past, I’m astounded by the ways I’ve healed and grown. I carry my own burdens through this Holy Week–some familiar and some new–knowing that in time I will set them down and pick up new ones. I’m not sure how, but I know that in time all things heal.

Remembering Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection reminds us that there is always new life to be found in tragedy, if only we trust that God will see us through. We are always being transformed, in time.

Text copyright © 2023 Grace Woodward. All rights reserved.