A Holy Week reflection by Jan Buerge:

We had planned it weeks ago.  The grey mesh fabric had been hanging across the color burst graphic for all of the weeks of Lent obscuring the energy and promise of that burst. On Palm Sunday it would seem fitting then to also drape that mesh fabric across the table as a symbol that we were entering Holy Week and all the trial and betrayal and grief that would precede the Easter Resurrection.

It was all confirmed. David would carry out the last Lenten candle and then I would blow out the candle on the encircling community sculpture and simply drape the grey fabric over the table. Over the sculpture. Over the palm branches. Over it all. Not hard at all. Except it was.

As I walked to the table and lifted the fabric, for a moment I just stopped. It felt too momentous. What was I covering? The glimmer of hope that was still left in Lent and Palm Sunday?

What flashed before me was the finality of life as we know it unless we also have hope in something eternal. Was I covering the face of Jesus who would soon be sent to a tomb?  I was also remembering the death of my father as we watched his life slip away. And thinking of a dear friend whose father is fighting to hold onto his life here amongst his family. All of this in a moment.

The grey fabric felt heavier than I imagined it could possibly be. Maybe I was lifting along with it the covering of loss. Loss that will always be felt deeply until other moments when the uncovering of our own resurrections can be celebrated.