Life is difficult

I remind you of the famous first words in Scott Peck's book, The Road Less Traveled. His first words are, "Life is difficult." Then he goes on to say,

 This is a great truth, but most of us can't see it. Instead we moan more or less incessantly, noisily, or subtly, about the enormity of our problem. As if life is supposed to be easy for us, and therefore what has happened to us has never happened to anybody else before, at least not in this excruciatingly painful or insoluble way that it has burdened us.

 Peck says that he wrote that not because as a therapist he hears his patients say that, but because he has been tempted to say that himself. You could call it the "Law of Exceptionalism," the idea that this has never happened before, at least not to the degree that it has happened to me. "Exceptionalism."

 I like that cartoon I saw a long time ago showing a huge desk, a huge CEO sitting behind the desk, in a huge leather chair. Standing meekly in front of the desk is a man in work clothes, obviously a lowly employee in that corporation. The worker says to the boss, "If it's any comfort, it's lonely at the bottom too."

 Life is difficult for everyone. Someone explained to me once why they don't like Lent. They said, "I'm not into suffering." I like that. Like it's optional. Like it's an adopted lifestyle.

 Well Jesus was not into suffering either. You remember he prayed, "Let this cup pass from me." But when the time came for him to go on "The Hero's Quest," the text says, "He set his face steadfastly for Jerusalem."

 In just a matter of days Holy Week takes us from the mountain of festive palms to the mountain of Golgatha's despair. And that is why we resist it so. I mean, do we really need the emotional rollercoaster of Holy Week? What's so wrong with just jumping from one parade to the next and skipping all the sacrifice and death stuff? What's wrong with simply moving on to the joy of Easter, with its white bonnets, Easter eggs, family, friends, big ham dinner, and of course the empty tomb.

 Well, I think we know the answer to that. For starters, an empty tomb, at face value, is a lot easier to deal with than a dying, bleeding Savior on a cross. Add to that all the pain and suffering that comes with Holy Week, is it any wonder that the human tendency is to try and ignore the events of the week and simply move on to the Easter celebration? But as much as we'd like to skip Holy Week we know that the only way to Easter is through the cross. We know where the parade of Palm Sunday leads and we also know that we're part of that parade. That is to say, we know this intellectually. Our hearts are another story. Our hearts may be more in sync with the disciples and the fear and disbelief that led them to run away. It would seem that 2000 years later Jesus' disciples are still running away.