Episode 070: How to Experience Holy Week When You Already Know the Ending

You sang Hosanna yesterday. And this morning, your usual life showed up right on schedule. How do you experience Holy Week when you already know where the story goes -  and your calendar did not clear itself to make room for any of it?

In this episode, we'll walk through what I call the Menu Method: a flexible, no-pressure approach for filling that pocket of time you protected. Whether you have one minute or ten, this framework meets you where your energy actually is.

 What you will walk away with:

• Permission to hold both Palm Sunday joy and Good Friday grief — at the same time, in the same heart

• A way to stay present to Holy Week even when one minute is all you have

• Understanding why joy can feel vulnerable when you sense it will not last — and why that is honest faith

SCRIPTURE HIGHLIGHT: Matthew 21:8–9

Research note: Roberts & Appiah (2025), International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being — on joy coexisting with sorrow; Shao et al. (2024), Mindfulness — on slow-paced breathing and cardiovascular function.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How do you experience Holy Week when you already know the ending? When you sang Hosanna yesterday and you are already carrying the weight of what happens on Friday. Today, let's find a simple, flexible approach for filling your Holy Week with presence instead of pressure. Even if all you have is one minute. Here's the first thing I want you to walk away with. Even if this is the only part you hear, you are not doing it wrong if joy and grief are both showing up this week. Research published in 2025 in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being found that joy frequently coexists with sorrow, and that joy can actually feel vulnerable because we sense it will not last. That is Holy Week for the person who has read the ending. Both emotions belong here. Neither one cancels the other out. I am Coach Janet J, and this is your next best step. Let's walk through something I call the menu method. It is going to change the way you think about showing up for the rest of this week. On Friday, I asked you to do one thing. Open your calendar and find a pocket of time during Holy Week, even 15 minutes. And I told you that you did not need to know what to fill it with yet. Today we fill it. Yesterday was Palm Sunday. Maybe you were in church waving palms, singing Hosanna. Maybe you watched your kids in a processional. Maybe you simply read the scripture at home. And there was joy in that, real joy. And this morning, your usual life showed up right on schedule. The lunches still needed packing. The appointments still needed keeping. The people around you still needed tending. Home Sunday did not rearrange your Monday. In Matthew 21, verses 8 and 9, the scene is vivid. The crowds are spreading cloaks and palm branches on the road. They are shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. It is one of the most joyful moments in all of Scripture. And here is what makes Holy Week so emotionally complex for those of us reading it now. Most of that crowd had no idea what was coming. Their joy was unguarded. They were celebrating a king they believed would reign right then, right there. Jesus knew. Some of his closest followers were beginning to sense that his talk of leaving meant something, even if they did not yet understand what. And still, the majority of people on that road were singing without any shadow of Friday in their voices. We do not have that luxury. We have read the ending. We walk into Palm Sunday already carrying the weight of Good Friday. We sing Hosanna, knowing full well what happens next. The betrayal, the trial, the cross. And that foreknowledge changes the experience of the celebration. Have you ever felt that? That strange tension between wanting to enter into the joy of Palm Sunday and finding it hard to fully get there. Because you already know where the week leads. That is what the research I mentioned earlier names so clearly. Joy can feel vulnerable precisely because we sense it will not last. And that discomfort, that awareness that something painful is ahead can make it difficult to be fully present in the good moment while we're still in it. That is holy week for the person who knows the story. The joy of Sunday is real. And so is the shadow of Friday. And rather than forcing yourself to feel only one, this week invites you to be present in both. So the question becomes practical. How do you actually stay present to a week that holds both joy and grief, especially when your schedule did not pause to make room for either one? That is where the menu method comes in. That is where the pocket of time you found in episode 69 becomes your anchor. You already made the space. Here's the flexible way to fill it. It works like this. When you sit down in that pocket of time you protected, whether it's later today, tomorrow, whenever you blocked it, you choose your level based on what you actually have in that moment. Not what you think you should have, what is true. One minute of breath prayer. That's it. One slow breath in, one slow breath out, and a single sentence to God. I am here for walk with me today. Or even I do not have words. You know my heart. Here is why one minute matters, a 2024 meta-analysis published in the journal Mindfulness, synthesizing 31 studies, found that slow-paced breathing produces immediate, measurable improvements in heart rate variability and blood pressure regulation. Your nervous system responds to even brief, intentional breathing. One minute of slow, deliberate breath is not a consolation prize. It is physiologically significant. Five minutes? Read a passage from the Gospel of Matthew that corresponds to where Jesus was during Holy Week. There is at least one passage for each day. Just read it slowly. No commentary, no study guide, just the story. Ten minutes? Combine the breath prayer and the reading. Then add a short journal entry. One sentence is enough. What struck me today was dot dot dot. Or I noticed God in dot dot dot. Or I am carrying dot dot dot. One minute, five minutes, ten minutes. That is the menu method. You choose your level when you open that window of time. And if the pocket you protected turns out to be a hard day, a day when 15 minutes becomes three, the one minute option is still there. You did not fail Holy Week. You showed up for it. You do not need to experience Holy Week the way most of that crowd did, with unguarded joy that did not see Friday coming. You are living it as someone who knows the full story. And knowing the full story means your worship this week might be quieter, more reflective, more layered than what you felt yesterday in church. That is not lesser worship. That is the kind of presence that comes from walking into something with your eyes wide open. And here is what I want you to hold on to. The menu method gives you a way to stay in the story even when the emotions are complicated. On the days when the joy of the resurrection feels close and accessible, you might choose the 10-minute option and linger in the reading. On the days when the weight of the crucifixion presses in and everything feels heavy, the one-minute breath prayer is still there. I am here. That is all. You do not have to sort out what you are feeling before you show up. You just show up, choose your level, and let God meet you in whatever you bring. The pocket of time you protected is not a performance space, it is a holding space for the joy and the grief and everything in between. And in this week, there will be plenty of in between. If you were thinking of reading Matthew, here are a few items to get you started. Today, Monday, Jesus clears the temple. Matthew 21, verses 12 through 17. And the breath prayer could be inhale, clear my heart. Exhale, make room for you. By Thursday, you're at the Last Supper, Matthew 26, verses 17 through 30. Your breath prayer could be inhaling, you have served me. Exhale, teach me to serve. And on Easter Sunday, Matthew 28, verses 1 through 10, your breath prayer, inhale, he is risen. Exhale, and I am new. Those are just a starting point. Your next best step today, know that when your pocket of time arrives, whether that is later today, tomorrow, or later this week, you have something to bring to it. You do not need to decide your level now. You decide when you sit down based on what is true in that moment for you. One minute, five, or ten. If you have not listened to episode 69 yet, the one where we found and protected the time, go back and start there. It's a short episode and it will set you up for the rest of this week. And here is one more thing. Once you have used the menu method in your protected pocket, you might find yourself wanting to come back to it again before the week is over. That is not a new assignment. That is the Holy Spirit doing what the Holy Spirit does. Follow it if the impulse comes, and if it does not come, you still showed up. That is what matters. Holy Week is emotionally complex, and that complexity is not a sign that you are doing it wrong. Joy and grief belong in the same week. They belong in the same heart. The menu method gives you a way to stay present to both. One minute for a breath prayer when the day is heavy. Five minutes for a reading when you have a little more space. Ten minutes to sit with all of it. You choose your level based on what is true, not what you think the week demands of you. The Hosanna you sang yesterday still counts today. Even alongside everything you know is coming, stay in the story. And remember, one minute days are still holy days. If this episode gave you permission to show up imperfectly this week, share it with someone who needs the same thing. I am walking this week with you. Take your next best.