It is a heartbreaking, beautiful tradition. Every year on Maundy Thursday night streets in cities around Honduras fill with artists. They spend the entire night and morning of Good Friday creating intricate "carpet" designs on the pavement with colored sawdust. The dusty, cobblestones and narrow lanes are transformed into breathtaking pieces of art. Then, in an instant, they are gone. Trampled under the feet of devout Catholics carrying figures of saints and virgins on parade, traipsing out every religious relic from their churches. Finally, they sob and wail around some representation of a dead and lifeless Jesus, usually carried in some type of glass casket. All the while, the incredible artistry created to honor a vibrant, living Creator is destroyed beneath them. I want to call out to them to stop—to tell them that their virgins and idols are not worthy, that the man in the box is not the Savior. There is more to the story. Easter Sunday is coming!
Instead I snap photos of the loveliness spread out at my feet before it is gone forever. Lord, I am pleased that they honor Your sacrifice. But do they know the victory?
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