In the Christian calendar, yesterday – Palm Sunday – was the beginning of Holy Week. If you, like me, didn’t grow up in a traditionally liturgical church, you might not be aware of the significance of this week. (I use “traditionally liturgical” specifically because I have found that all churches are liturgical, meaning they have a set order and pattern for their services, even if they call themselves non-liturgical.)

I wondered this morning what difference it makes to relive this – the most written about week of Jesus’ earthly life – when we know the whole story. Why walk so slowly through the darkness and the suffering when we can live in the sunshine of the resurrection?

Then I answered my own question with the experience of watching a movie more than once. Now, granted, not all movies are made for this. But there is a short list of movies I would watch again almost anytime, with anyone. Hoosiers. Life is Beautiful. Those are two. Pride and Prejudice is another. All of them contain difficult parts, but we don’t fast-forward over them to get to the end of the movie because the end wouldn’t feel the same without the beginning and the middle. We need the whole story for the full effect.

I believe that’s why God gave us the Bible as literature. So we could relive the moments that make the whole story make sense. Observers from the outside of the faith may find fault by picking out tidbits of the Bible and wondering how we could practice such a faith, but, taken in context, it is a complete story with beautiful conclusions.

When someone admitted recently that he wasn’t sure he really liked the God of the Old Testament I replied, “I think that’s the point.” In the great movies we have to be uncomfortable with a situation before we can truly appreciate the climax and response. The best authors exploit this tension.

This Holy Week, consider the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor murdered in a Nazi prison camp for his work helping Jews escape Germany during WWII. These are from his book The Cost of Discipleship written years before he was called upon to pay the price of his life. They seem a perfect Holy Week reflection to me that highlights the tension we live in as Christians. The discussion is one of cheap grace (“Let’s just skip to the end and eat our chocolate bunnies!”) versus costly grace (“Let’s spend some time this week considering the poetic power of this Christian story.”):

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought with a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

. . . .

Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Last week I was tempted to be jealous of another blogger when she announced her recent representation by a well-known literary agent. After admitting this to my husband, he asked, “How did she get noticed?”

We were riding together to work in our new-to-us van. It’s a red Honda: practically my dream car (and that is not sarcasm).

I didn’t want to answer the question but I did anyway. “She has a good idea. Writes well. And she submitted a great book proposal apparently.”

He turned back to the pavement in front of us and wisely said no more. Here the road curves around a big lake where six storybook swans make their home. I know what he’s saying because I say it to him all the time: The artist has to provide a product.

After settling my computer and purse in my office, I gather my books and walk across the parking lot and into the building that houses my classroom. The sun is warm and the breeze blows with the promise of perspective.

I greet my students, a tiny band of five who have just wrestled through C. S. Lewis’ classic The Screwtape Letters. Most of them had to fight for every sentence – looking up new vocabulary words and untangling the backward advice of demon to demon. It was both an academic and a spiritual challenge. Today they submit their own creative works: a set of new letters from Screwtape to the underling assigned to the writer’s own life. Most of them are eager.

One student is empty-handed.

I acknowledge her frustration. It’s been an emotional week. The assignment required technical and spiritual precision. But I can’t accept a late paper.

“Could you get me something by the end of the day? 4:30 in my office?”

She thinks so.

After we hash out the politics behind some of Lewis’ writing and unearth the language clues buried in the text concerning our lead character’s final moments, I close the class and we walk out the door together but in different directions.

Later, I receive that paper before I click my door locked that afternoon, and it has me wondering:

I probably need someone to require the same thing from me.

I did it this afternoon for myself with this blog post. I’ll start tomorrow with something else.

I’ve been going on and on about how sports are great and how much I love them.

And then this weekend sports broke my heart.

Yes, it was partly mostly about my Mizzou Tigers being upset in the first round of the NCAA tournament. I was stunned. Three weeks of my March schedule had been built around the games I would watch this team win and suddenly that schedule opened wide. It was terrible. I watched Twitter accounts for each of the  players I’ve grown to “know” during this fantastic season hoping to see them tweet something that proved they were okay. Jesse laughs at me because I call them “Bubba” or “Baby” during games, the same names I use for him.

So it was about my Tigers first, but then it was about Duke and Purdue and every team that lost. Because, you know, when you play a game of basketball only one team can win! Grown men crying. Coaches worried about the security of their jobs. Parents with grief stricken faces wondering what they will say when their son emerges from the locker room knowing he’s played the last game of his career. No one wants to be the loser in these games. By the end of the weekend I could barely stand to watch any of it.

And then it was about how ugly we can become in the middle of it all. I felt genuinely sad after our loss. It reminded me not to make jokes about Kansas losing (because they will eventually, right?) Why would I want any other fan to feel what I felt that day week? It seems like too many of us are willing to put our sports affiliation in front of common kindness and consideration. (Don’t even get me started on how we treat the officials of these games.) For sure we forget way too easily that the guys on the other side of the court are people too. People with mothers and dreams and adversities overcome. Why is it okay to forget that? Why is it acceptable to be mean to each other as long as we’re talking about our respective sports teams?

Unfortunately, all of this means that sports remains a nearly perfect analogy for life. Winners and losers. Sportsmanship and nastiness. Perspective and passion. Pure motives and mixed. I just happened to be on the losing end this week and therefore noticed the brokenness all around me. I’ve been the winner, too. (Oh, Baylor.) It was nice living there.

March – I tweeted – I prefer your madness when it happens to someone else’s team.

So I guess what I’m saying is that if you are on the winning team today remember that you might find yourself two points short next time. What will you need then? How will you want to be treated?

I want to live that way today.

PS – I’m not really that upset about our loss. Well, I am, but I don’t need to be watched carefully or anything. I just thought the situation was a great analogy. Seriously, Kansas fans, I don’t hate you and I forgive you for hating me.