Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
This year, as the calendar turns from March to April, Atonement Lutheran Church will be in the midst of its Holy Week observance. This month I would like to help us all prepare for Holy Week by taking a brief moment to consider the incredible unity of the Holy Scriptures. I want us to see in greater clarity the connections between the events of Holy Week as recorded by the four Biblical Gospels and the week of creation as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. We will refer to an article by Professor Charles Arand of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis to help draw out these connections. It is my prayer that our trust in our Creator God who in the fullness of time sent forth his Son to renew all creation might grow.
This year, as the calendar turns from March to April, Atonement Lutheran Church will be in the midst of its Holy Week observance. This month I would like to help us all prepare for Holy Week by taking a brief moment to consider the incredible unity of the Holy Scriptures. I want us to see in greater clarity the connections between the events of Holy Week as recorded by the four Biblical Gospels and the week of creation as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. We will refer to an article by Professor Charles Arand of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis to help draw out these connections. It is my prayer that our trust in our Creator God who in the fullness of time sent forth his Son to renew all creation might grow.
Consider this: on the 6th day of the week, God created his human creatures; on the 6th day of the week, Jesus (the Creator incarnate) dies for his human creatures. God’s human creatures were not content to remain creatures. They wanted to rise above and transcend their creatureliness. They wanted to be like God. Yet in that very moment, when they overreached, they fell. And when they fell, they dragged down with them the entire creation into violence, death, and decay. And then we come to Holy Week. The sixth day, the day on which the God had made his human creatures, now becomes the day that the Son (through whom all things were made) now suffers and dies as a human creature. Jesus dies and endures God’s judgment upon his human creatures. And creation fell apart: the earth quaked, the sky darkened.
The parallels continue. In Genesis, after God finished creating, He rested on the seventh day and delighted in all that he had made. And now on the seventh day, after Jesus declared on the cross that “it was finished,” Jesus rested in the tomb. This time he rested not from his work of creation, but from his work of rescuing creation. And then the new beginning. On the first day of the week he arose bodily from the dead. Again, consider the connections. God began his work of creation on the first day. He now ushers in the new creation on the first day of the week—first for humans and then for the rest of creation. And so Sunday becomes the first day of the new creation or the 8th day of creation—a point illustrated by the shape of many of our baptismal fonts. And so where the fall of the entire creation began, there the restoration of the entire creation begins (namely, with us, God’s human creatures). [1]
The one who created all things in a week has intervened in in a week of new creation to recreate you in the image of his Firstborn Son, Jesus Christ. Let us ever be found in this Christ as baptized, believing new creations.
A blessed Holy Week and Easter season to all of you!
In Christ,
Pastor Josh
[1] Dr. Charles Arand, “The 6th Day” found on togetherwithallcreatures.com.
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