Palm Sunday words (Mother Beth)

Our Lenten pilgrimage has given way to Holy Week. We begin today the slow march with Jesus to the Cross and tomb, through Good Friday to Easter. And through the things we will do together over this week, we feel again the sublime truth about Christ, his humiliation, his exaltation, and his cosmic offer to take us along with him in that process. 

We feel this year, perhaps more than any other in recent memory, how much evil and suffering there is in the world. Perhaps what happens to Jesus should come as less of a surprise to us this time around.
I’m sure every one of us has brought some aspect of what we’ve been through this past year with us today as we enter into what Jesus goes through on our behalf. Personal pain, family pain, global pain, whatever it is, we carry it with us into this great week long process that is bigger and more powerful than the things we bring with us.

And accordingly, we have just together proclaimed the passion Gospel, taking it into our voices, because that is where it belongs. If we want our life story to make sense, we have to find its meaning in Jesus’ story. We have to find ourselves in him.

If you believe that, you will want to live this week with Christ, whether in person, on Zoom, via video, or through the materials we’ve emailed out. This week we walk together with Jesus through the great events by which he won our salvation. Take everything you bring, all your pain, all your questions, all your hopes, and pour them into this.  Let Holy Week do its work until we arrive at Easter. Let God bring you, in Christ, all the way to the real end of the story.