The Upload
Posted on Mar 27, 2015 by
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week!
Well, here we go! This Sunday is Palm Sunday. Ever since I was a little boy, I can remember waving palms on Palm Sunday. At the church I grew up in, we would start outside, no matter how cold it was, and the priest would read the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and then the entire congregation would walk into the church waving their palms and singing. It was fun! I didn’t like the rest of Holy Week, especially Good Friday, because it seemed so sad, but I loved Palm Sunday!
Then about the time I started college in the 1970’s, my church started doing something different. Instead of calling it “Palm Sunday,” they started calling the Sunday before Easter “Passion Sunday.” Instead of Palm Sunday being fun and joyous, they started including the “Passion Story,” that part of the story that we always used to read on Good Friday, which included Jesus’ death. Why did they have to ruin a good day? The transition from one story to the next always felt sudden and rather awkward to me; it was as if everything changed in an instant.
For a long time, I really didn’t like Passion Sunday, but the more I practiced it and the more I studied God’s word, the more I came to truly love Passion Sunday. If truth be told, Passion Sunday truly reflects the reality of our lives, lives in which everything can change in an instant. Most of us try to deny that life can change very quickly, but if we are honest with ourselves, we know it is true. On April 25, 1972, I was a happy young man when I woke up. It was my 13th birthday, and I was excited and couldn’t wait to start the day. My mom made me a great breakfast, and I couldn’t wait to go to school. I was a teenager! But while I was getting ready to go to school, our phone rang, and a couple of minutes later, my mom came in my room to tell me that my grandfather had died. My life changed in an instant. We have all experienced similar life-changing moments. “It’s cancer!” “There has been an accident!” “We’re going to have a baby!” We live our lives as though these things will never happen to us, but when they do, the preciousness of life becomes very real.
This Sunday is Passion Sunday, a day we are challenged to remember that, in an instant, the world changed. In an instant, God reconciled the world to himself and for our sake overcame death. As we wave our palm branches this Sunday and celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, may we also remember that that same Jesus willingly allowed himself to be placed upon the cross for you and for me. A week that began with such joy ended with sadness, but as we will quickly learn, even that sadness quickly changed back to joy.
As we make our final journey to the cross this week, may we remember that life can and will change in an instant, but may we also remember that because of that cross, we have been reconciled to God and we have been forever forgiven. So even when our lives have been turned upside down, this story reminds us that Jesus knows exactly how it feels to have everything change in a moment. He doesn’t offer us easy answers or cheap expressions of sympathy; he offers us his very life that we may have hope.
Have a blessed Holy Week.
Shalom,
Pastor Dave