Pastoral Psychologist’s View on Holy Week: Final Preparation for the New Passover of the Paschal Mystery

“Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest! ”(Matthew 21:9)

We have begun the Holy Week with the above exuberant words, waving palms, praising Jesus entering into the City of Jerusalem. We have kicked off the last leg of Lent with this victorious mood.

This is like entering into the final portion, say the last 5 km, of a marathon course very strongly, to make a victorious crossing of the finish line.  Experienced marathoners always run this way as they practice the negative split method, meaning that they gradually increase their pace as the mileage advances, rather than slowing down with the distance. They do this by not going too fast upon the start, fighting temptations to go too fast during earlier phases of a marathon, so that they save enough energy to increase the pace later toward the finish line. 

So, we were doing pretty well with our Lenten marathon, running strong, as we were praising Jesus, believing that he has come to Jerusalem for salvation, as the Messiah. This belief was based on the Zechariah’s below prophecy:

“Exult greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! Behold: your king is coming to you, a just savior is he, humble, and riding on a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).

The prophecy says that the messiah king is riding on a donkey – not a white horse.  And, that’s how Jesus was, when he came to Jerusalem to wrap up his mission given by the Father. But, somehow, we, as juxtaposed to the people in Jerusalem, praising Jesus, thinking that he is the king of the messiah king, who would bring salvation to them with imperialistic political power.

This is an illusion of the messiah we tend to have, because we filter God and the Messiah through our ego-centric mind. We want God and the Messiah in images that satisfy our own egos.  Psychospiritually, such a narcissistic take on religion can be dangerous as it can turn our religiosity into pathological madness. The way the Holy Week Gospel narratives, especially the stories during the Paschal Triduum, unfold make a good case study on this. 

Within a short span of a week, upon, praising Jesus as the king messiah entering into Jerusalem, waving palms,  we soon change our hearts 180 degrees, conspiring to kill this king, mocking him. This pathological change of our hearts in our object relations to Jesus is well reflected in the Good Friday Gospel narrative (John 18:1-19:42, especially John 19:1-16, ) and also in the Palm Sunday Gospel story (Matthew 26:14-27:66, especially Matthew 27:11-44) . We are shouting with madness, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”, so enthusiastically (John 19:6), demanding that the man we were praising a few days ago to be killed. 

So, how did this psychopathological reaction , taking place about 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem, emerge?  Psychologically, how can we do such a thing: one day, we praised him, but in a few days, we wanted to kill him? And, we actually killed him, in the most humiliating way, projecting our hatred to the man we were praising.

This is a very important question that I pose in reflecting on our collective memories of the Good Friday morning about 2,000 years ago. 

Our collective past, at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, projected into the crowds’ fanatic shouting in demanding Jesus to be killed, in the Good Friday Gospel story (John 18:1-19:42) and the Palm Sunday Gospel narrative (Matthew 26:14-27:66), was like the crowds in Germany during the Nazi regime “brainwashed” by their charismatic pathological leader, Adolf Hitler.  This psychopathology within our within us, collectively speaking, is what killed Jesus on Good Friday. 

Of course, this psychopathology has its roots in narcissism. When narcissism enters into a religion, it can make a deadly psychopathology, as the religion contaminated by narcissism becomes a fear-driven religion.  And, it was fear that drove us in our collective past at that time killed Jesus. 

The narcissistic disposition, which can be a psychological mark of the Original Sin, within us causes our insecure feelings. Clearly, we were insecure about our faith in failing to appreciate Jesus. Rather, our insecurity of narcissism regarded Jesus as a threat.  In order for our narcissism to thrive on, we had to get rid of this threat. Thus, we killed him on Good Friday. 

This psychopathological development can be understood if we read any Gospel narratives leading to the plot to kill Jesus. And, it is important to acknowledge how dangerous it is if we let our fear and insecure feelings drive not only our behaviors but also our religion. 

Now, fear was also a problem of Peter, whom our psychospiritual weakness is projected,  in the Gospel stories.

Peter had this fear problem as he discouraged Jesus from going to Jerusalem, knowing that it is dangerous to him, upon realizing that he is the Messiah (Matthew 16:13-28). Immediately after Peter figured out that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16), Jesus began foretelling his own death, predicting what would happen from Good Friday to Easter Sunday (Matthew 16:21), suggesting that it is the fulfillment of the Isaiah’s prophesy of the suffering Messiah (Isaiah 52:13-53:12). This was what took place before Jesus’ transfiguration on the Mt. Tabor, which was read for the 2^nd Sunday of Lent Gospel (Matthew 17:1-9).

In fact, Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is the first reading for Good Friday, as it is the day to commemorate the day that this Isaiah’s prophesy of the suffering Messiah began. But, this is also the day that Peter betrayed Jesus, as he ran away from Jesus, upon his arrest (Matthew 26:56) and disowned Jesus three times out of fear, stemming from ego-centric self-serving interest (Matthew 26:69-75, as read on Palm Sunday; John 18:15-18, 25-27, as read on Good Friday). And, this is also where the story of the Stations of the Cross takes place, beginning the condemnation of Jesus, while Peter betrayed him. 

Up until the moment of Matthew 26:56,…until the beginning of the story of the Stations of the Cross, Peter presented himself as the most loyal man for Jesus. During the Last Supper, Peter had said to Jesus, “Even though I should have to die with you, I will not deny you” (Matthew 26:35), in response to Jesus’ prediction that he would betray him. 

Perhaps, Peter’s statement in Matthew 26:35 could be out of his ego-defense mechanism – because his own self-serving interpretation of Jesus as the Christ did not enable him to accept that Jesus is the suffering Messiah to die, as foretold by Jesus and as prophesized in Isaiah 52: 13-53:12. 

Because of his inability to accept Jesus as the suffering Messiah, Peter proved to be spiritually weak. And, his love and care for Jesus, though these are true, were not firm enough to endure the challenges associated with executing the love and care he promised verbally to Jesus.  Otherwise, Peter would not have fallen asleep when Jesus was praying in agony as he prepared for his final hours (Matthew 26:36-46), either. Rather, he would have watched Jesus in agony, deeply emphasizing with his spiritual pain in affirming his acceptance of the cup of suffering, also preparing himself to walk with Jesus on his path into the Calvary. But, Peter, because of his spiritual weakness, failed to do witness Jesus’ prayer in agony with empathy.

So, an important lesson from Peter’s failure to remain as faithful as he verbally professed to Jesus is that our love and compassion for someone is only a necessary condition, as these need to be firmly ascertained by our spiritual strengths. 

Having counseled so many troubled couples and on so many troubled marriages, I see Peter’s problem also in these troubled couples, who verbally promised their love for each other but have failed to assure the promises, because of their psychospiritual weakness attributed to both psychological and spiritual immaturity.  For us to be able to act with the kind of love that Jesus teaches – agape, it takes psychospiritual maturity. And, the more mature we become, the less narcissistic we are, as we become more secure internally.  This is an important object relation theory lesson from the Holy Week Gospel narrative case study of Peter. 

Though we do need the Peter’s passion,  it sure needs to be sustainable and enduring challenges, transcending fears and temptation by our narcissistic disposition within. This is a critical psychospiritual lesson we can take form the Holy Week, in particular, the Paschal Triduum meditation, pondering upon how Peter, who truly loved and cared for Jesus, failed to keep his promise of love.

In a way, Easter is the New Passover.

For this, Lent is a preparation marathon journey for this New Passover.

The Passover in the Old Testament was about God delivering the Jews from the slavery in Egypt into freedom. For Christians, this New Passover, Easter, is about God delivering us from our psychospiritual bandage of sins, into the salvific freedom, through the Paschal Sacrifice of Jesus the Christ. 

In order to prepare for the feast of Passover, the Jews work hard in eliminating yeasts and all yeast-containing projects out of their homes, in light of Exodus 12:14-20, especially in 12:15. In Judaism, leaven is regarded as a symbol of sin. The fact that leaven makes dough puff is a symbolic image of our enlarged ego with narcissistic disposition within our mind.  Thus, our narcissistic disposition is equivalent to hidden leaven.

Likewise, Christians have been spending these 40 days of Lent in eliminating leavens out of our lives, for Lenten transcendental transformation, in preparation for the New Passover on Easter Day.

Christians certainly take this Jewish wisdom for Passover in preparing for Easter as the New Passover. In fact,  yeast is associated with sin also in the New Testament (Luke 12:1; Mark 8:15; Matthew 16:6, 11; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 5:8), as a factor that makes us corrupt, with the exception in Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:21. In Galatians 5:8, Paul describes yeast as a factor that makes us “quit a good race”, meaning that it causes apostasy for a sinful life, as “running a good race” in Paul’s view is a metaphor for living a faithful life. 

In the Buddhist context, yeast  in the Judeo-Christian tradition can be regarded as a sign of kleshas (defilement). In Yogacare psychology, yeast can correspond to the manas-vijnana, which can distort our perception and recognition of the reality. And, Jesus cannot be accepted as the salvific new Paschal Lamb for the New Passover, prophesized in Isaiah  52: 13-53:12, if we view Jesus through manas-vijnana. And, it was the problem that we had in Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago, leading to the crucifixion of Jesus. It was also the problem that Peter had, in spite of his passionate desire to be faithful to Jesus. 

We have been preparing for these past 40 days of Lent through the preparation marathon journey to break free from the psychospiritual chains of narcissism. It is why Lent is a critical time of our psychospiritual transformative growth, as narcissism is a sign of psychospiritual immaturity. And, the Holy Week, especially the Paschal Triduum, is the very time that we experience this transformative change within ourselves into the post-narcissism salvific freedom. 

Let us completely eliminate all the leaven of narcissism to be truly ready for the New Passover with the risen Christ, with our new matzo, which Jesus instituted on the Maundy Thursday!  On the New Passover, on this third day from the New Paschal Sacrifice on Good Friday, the blood of Christ, that Jesus offered during the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday (Matthew 26:27-28), and the Blood that gushed out of his body on the cross on the following day, Good Friday (John 19:34), is what protects us, in a similar way that the lamb’s blood protected the Jews during the tenth plague (Exodus 12:11-13) for Passover.  And, this is the blood that will wash our lobes white for enduring tribulations and salvation, as said in Revelation 7:14. 

Happy Easter – Happy New Passover! 

May our new journey into the post-Passover freedom be fruitful. May we be strong on this new journey into the freedom, nourished by the power of the risen Christ and the new matzo, which is also the new manna, as we move onto our new Exodus until the return of the risen Christ in the next God’s appointed time.