Don’t hesitate to be enthusiastic—be on fire in the Spirit as you serve the Lord! Be happy in your hope, stand your ground when you’re in trouble, and devote yourselves to prayer. Contribute to the needs of God’s people, and welcome strangers into your home. – Romans 12:11-13 (CEB)
This early part of Holy Week is a strange time within the church calendar. We talk about Holy Week, but there’s not anything particular about Monday through Wednesday. Mostly that is a matter of energy – it would not be possible to sustain having a worship service every evening. Still, we have Palm/Passion Sunday and then nothing for several days until we get to Thursday. It is like being ready for something big to happen but then just sitting around bored for a while (I am not saying I am bored, to be clear!). It is like waiting on the starting line for the race to start and just waiting until your muscles start to tighten.
Yet isn’t that so much of life? Ordinary days pass with little sign of what God might be up to. We no deep struggles are out there waiting, as is the joy of resurrection, but most days are merely mundane. These are days when our faith really emerges. Are we faithful when it does not seem to matter? Does it actually matter to hold onto faith on a day that is simply lukewarm? The promise of Christ is that God is there and at work on even the quiet days; the challenge of faith is noticing it and perhaps even being changed by it in some way. This is the power of looking at a crust of bread and seeing that Christ is truly present in it, as we are promised as we come to Thursday and turn our attention to the Last Supper. One of the ways to find God in the mundane days is through devotional practices. That may seem overwhelming at times, but I suggest that this early part of Holy Week is time to test this out and see that it is not so scary. Find a devotion book to read, try out an app like the centering prayer one from Contemplative Outreach, or aim to read a chapter of the bible. Start small but find a way to recognize God around you in these ordinary days.