“What mean ye by this service?”
Tenebrae is a Latin word meaning shadows or darkness. In the pageant of Holy Week, the service of Tenebrae anticipates aspects of the Triduum Sacrum, the three great holy days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday that bring us to the celebration of Easter.
It signals a greater degree of intensity and a more inward emphasis. So much of the violence of Holy Week, the violence of hatred and anger that lurks in our fallen hearts, is expressed outwardly. But on the Wednesday in Holy Week there is a more inward turn. This greater degree of inwardness is expressed in the psalms and readings of Tenebrae as we enter more fully into Christ’s passion. It is also an important feature of the Passion Gospel which is read on this day. On Wednesday in Holy Week, we read the Beginning of the Passion according to St. Luke.
The purpose and intent of Holy Week, especially in our Anglican understanding and practice, is to immerse ourselves in the fullness of the Scriptural witness to the Passion of Christ. That is why all four passion accounts from the four canonical gospels are read throughout Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, we read the Passion according to St. Matthew. On Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, we read the Passion according to St. Mark. Today, on Wednesday in Holy Week, we begin reading the Passion according to St. Luke which we will conclude on Maundy Thursday. On Good Friday, the Passion according to St. John will be read. It is the complete packet of the Passion.
Each gospel account of the Passion provides a different perspective and has a distinct emphasis. Are there inconsistencies in terms of the details? Yes. Are there any major discrepancies that have any bearing on the basic and fundamental teaching about the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ? No. To appreciate the differences is to grasp the deeper and creedal unity of the Christian understanding.
Luke’s account of the Passion provides a more inward aspect to the Passion. We see this, I think, in several ways. In accord with our Passover question, we have the institution of the Last Supper as we have seen with Mark. Christ has entered into Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover with his disciples. The Passover ritual is profoundly transformed by the identity which Christ establishes with the bread and the wine of the Passover meal. With Luke, too, there is a further degree of intensity about the betrayal of the table-fellowship and an emphasis on the theme of covenant. Something new is being established by Jesus. “I make a covenant with you, as my Father has made a covenant with me.”
The language of covenant is powerful and suggestive language. It speaks to the divine will and purpose that underlies the Passion. It also heightens the human drama both in terms of the betrayals of sin and the blessings of redemption. There is an intensification of the covenant between our humanity and God transacted in the Passion of Christ and conveyed in the ritual of the Last Supper.
There is also the greater degree of inwardness captured in the curious dialogue between Peter and Christ at the last supper where Jesus shows his understanding of the conflict and contradictions between good and evil in the soul; specifically, the soul of Peter. At once prophetic of Peter’s betrayal, it also anticipates Peter’s conversion or repentance and suggests his role in the order of the nascent Church. It is, as if Jesus sees into the soul of Peter.
But the most outstanding example of this inward turn is the picture of Christ in what has come to be called “the agony of Gethsemane.” Luke gives us a picture of the soul of Christ, a soul in turmoil, a soul in agony. It brings out the tension, we might say, between the human and the divine. Christ prays “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” Beyond these poignant words, Luke adds a powerful picture of the intensity of Christ in prayer. “And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Agony. His sweat likened to great drops of blood. It is a strong visual image for the inner condition of the human soul of Christ. It reveals the inner nature of the agone, the struggle.
We are, I think, meant to feel the passion of Christ in his prayer to the Father.
The turn inward has its finest literary expression, I think, in Luke’s account of the story of Peter’s betrayal of Christ. In Luke’s account, Jesus says to Peter that “the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.” Mark has Jesus say “before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.” Matthew indicates the same as Luke, “the cock shall not crow this day, until you three times deny that you know me.” Does it really matter? Can one possibly know which it is? No. Just some of the little and human touches to the witness of the truth of the Scriptures. But Luke gives an added touch to the poignancy of Peter’s recognition of his betrayal of Christ. “The cock crew,” Luke notes, and, then, relates “and the Lord turned and looked upon Peter; and Peter remembered the word of the Lord.” And in remembering, he not only goes out and weeps; he “wept bitterly.”
Here we glimpse something of the intensity of the Passion. Here we see something for us in our relation to what we contemplate and behold in the events of the week of the Passover. “What mean ye by this service?” We are meant to be convicted in our hearts like Peter. We behold the crucified but it will be the image of Christ looking upon us that will break our hearts. His look upon Peter, I think, is a look of compassion and mercy. It is not harsh judgment. The look of Christ is about his knowing us better than we know ourselves. It is about what is known in the shadows and the darkness of our souls. It belongs to the meaning of this service.
“What mean ye by this service?”
Fr. David Curry
Wednesday in Holy Week,
Tenebrae 2011