The Deeper Message of Holy Week

When I was a kid, a free-flowing river meandered its way through my backyard. Growing up in dark, drippy, soulful Oregon winters, I’d watch the death of January conquer, year after year, the once free-flowing and wild Willamette River. By mid-month, during the muffled silence of cold, a deep, bone-chilling freeze would halt every living thing upon the face of our backyard.The river looked dead—frozen dead. But the frozen river wasn’t really dead. My old man would tell me that underneath that col