The Downward Path
The way of grace is not upward, to places of power and status, but downward, towards those who hunger, suffer, or who weep. This is the path that walk with Jesus throughout the days of Holy Week.
Henri Nouwen once titled a chapter in a book “Jesus, the Descending God” where we wrote about L’Arche community where people with and without intellectual disabilities live together. He writes,
“You might say that at Yale and Harvard they are principally interested in upward mobility. Whereas here, they believe in the importance of downward mobility. That’s the radical difference. And I notice in myself how difficult it is to change directions on the ladder.”[i]
The journey of Holy Week is the downward path made real, as Jesus meets the world of power, ego, and violence with self-giving love. It is a weeklong drama that is intimate yet painful, which connects us to our grief while pointing us towards new life.
I hope you will walk this journey with us next week. From the elation of the Palm Sunday procession to the passion reading, from the intimacy of the Maundy Thursday service to the stark honesty of Good Friday, from a cathedral filled with the faithful from across the diocese at the Great Vigil of Easter to the elation of Easter morning, together we travel the path of grace that starts with the downward path and leads to resurrection.
The Very Rev. Bernard J. Owens
[i] N. Gordon Cosby, By Grace Transformed: Christianity for a New Millennium. (The Crossroad Publishing Company: New York, 1999). P. 28