Tomorrow, as we enter Jerusalem triumphantly with Jesus on Palm Sunday, we also enter into Holy Week. This Sunday is when palms are waving, shouts ring out “Hosanna!” and crowds proclaim Jesus as a messenger of God and the soon-to-be-reigning “King of Israel.” This glorious scene is bittersweet, though, even as we wave our own palms in procession and proclaim “Hosanna!” and sing “Ride On, Ride On in Majesty.” We live and pray our faith throughout the liturgical year. We participate in the remembrance and celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in each Holy Eucharist. We hold both truths in our hearts as we enter this week: there is great joy, and there is great loss.
These dual truths come together in the Palm Sunday liturgy this week. If we choose to, we can also practice stepping into the depths of this Holy Week by holding the image of Jesus, fully human and fully divine, knowing both the joy of this week that begins with a triumphant entry and looking toward the road leading to the painful and anguished end of an earthly life. All of us, with each step, believing that there will be so much more to this story.
But the story still must unfold, step by step.
We have been walking together on our own virtual journey of Living into Sacred Space. Each week of the journey can be accessed on the archived image at: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/620025353083027456. Beginning tomorrow, we will begin walking our journey through Holy Week as the passion narrative unfolds step by step. This is a time of preparation to experience divine mystery, for allowing our hearts to open fully and hear a story into which we live more and more deeply with each telling. For each day of preparation in Holy Week, you will find a daily reading from the Gospel, an image on which to meditate, and a poem on which to reflect. I will also be reading, and meditating and reflecting as we share in this sacred space together.
May we prepare our hearts as we live deeply into the sacred space of this most holy week…
Sacred Space 