For 2,000 years, Christians have marked Holy Week as the most sacred stretch of time in the calendar - a journey from celebration to sorrow to resurrection.
This is the week that encapsulates the human story: joy, despair, and ultimately, hope. Followers of Jesus believe this is the moment when death - literal and symbolic - was defeated. That even the grave doesn’t get the final word.
“This is the week that marks the moment when followers of Jesus like me believe that death was defeated and that death and the grave don’t have the last word.”
Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and culminates in Resurrection Sunday, but for me, it’s Good Friday that carries the deepest personal resonance.
Good Friday is not about victory - it’s about pain. It’s about the cross. It’s a day Christians remember the death of Jesus. And in that death, there’s something startlingly relatable:
“We can all relate to these sort of mini deaths we face on a regular basis… the death of hopes, dreams, relationships. The Christian tradition doesn’t rush past that. It pauses. It lets us grieve.”
Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, reminds us, from dust you came and to dust you shall return. It’s confronting. But through that confrontation, the gift of resurrection becomes even more precious.
“Even the staunchest critic of religion feels it: something about death feels wrong, misaligned with what it means to be human.”
In the Easter story, we find an answer to that inner ache. A story that says: death is not the end.
Jay Y. Kim is the lead pastor at WestGate Church in San Jose, California, and author of Analog Church, Analog Christian and Listen, Listen, Speak. He spoke to Ruth Jackson here
Next up:Why on earth would Christians wear a cross - an ancient torture device - as a symbol of hope? In the next article, Jay unpacks the meaning and mystery of Good Friday and the upside-down kingdom of Jesus.
