Palm Sunday

I love holy week. Until yesterday, I had forgotten how much I love it.

At our Palm Sunday service, we began the service outdoors with the Gospel reading and then walked around the block singing worship songs. Where I live, that's just plain weird. It is more acceptable to be gay than to be Christian. I couldn't help but think that our procession was a proclamation of another reality that our culture treats as a myth.

When we returned to the steps of our church, we had a second reading outside the church. I knelt on the sidewalk next to Elisabeth as I heard these words:

'And when [Jesus] drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”' (Luke 19:41-44)

I couldn't help but shudder at the phrase "you and your children within you" as I held Elisabeth. These are solemn and terrible and fearful words of our Lord.

We entered the chapel together and continued in worship, which included a lengthy dramatic reading of the betrayal and denial in which we, the congregation were the voice of the throng asking for Barabbas. When offered Jesus, we said, "Let him be crucified!" and "His blood be on us and on our children!" More shudders.

This is the reality of the crucifixion. It is not simply a nice "Bible story." It is a gut-wrenching tale of betrayal, denial, and death of the One who is utterly faithful and kind, who went willingly to the cross.

I love holy week not because it is full of happy feelings, but because in it I see the invincible love of Jesus over our sin by the cross. The heights of resurrection morning are more pronounced for having seen during the week our sinfulness over which he triumphed.