Palm Sunday - March 24

 Mark11:1-10     Isaiah 50:4-7     Philippians 2:6-11     Mark 14:1-15:47

Palm Sunday is a strange moment in the church calendar. It begins with a ritual observed only once a year, the waving and blessing of palm branches while we listen to the story of an adoring crowd joyfully welcoming Jesus as he enters Jerusalem ahead of Passover - the festival of liberation. Palm Sunday gives us a foretaste of the Holy Week to come. That mystical triduum of days meant to bleed into one another. Its rituals will jostle us between fasting and feasting, darkness and light, fear and joy. A flurry of incense and prayer will veil these days with feelings of wonder and awe; creating a sense that the distinction between life and death is not what it seems.

Jesus entered Jerusalem that day knowing his death was imminent. My father died this past October after three years battling a cancer he knew would eventually kill him. We made the most of those final weeks with him in the hospital and then hospice. It was a sacred time for me. Jesus certainly made the most of his final moments with his friends those last days in Jerusalem. But wasn’t that Jesus’ modus operandi? – to live every moment to the fullest! FULLY HUMAN, FULLY DIVINE.

Even though death will certainly enter this Holy Week, we know it will end the same way it began – with rejoicing. In the middle of my grief, I am heartbroken that there were so many things my dad never got to fulfill in his lifetime, especially at the end. But with the moments he was given, he lived a full life – one with fasting and feasting, darkness and light, fear and joy.  

Q: Given how Jesus Christ chose to live, do I need to re-examine my definition of a “full” life?

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