Dear friends,
Here we are, approaching the end of our Lenten journey. Easter is in finally within our view. This year more than ever I could use a resurrection story. A story of God bringing new life where there only appears to be death. A story so good and so true that we see it played out in nature over and over again. Winter doesn’t last forever. Spring always comes.
Unfortunately, I’m getting ahead of myself because this Sunday is Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. This Sunday is the beginning of the messy middle. Easter isn't here yet.
This Sunday Jesus enters Jerusalem to fanfare, the people celebrating him as the embodiment of all their hopes and dreams for a Messiah. On Thursday, they will turn on him and cry for his death. On Friday, they will bury him with very little fanfare. On Saturday, they will sit and wonder if this is really where the story ends and how they were so wrong about him being the One they waited for all those years. How quickly life can change.
I’m not quite sure how to celebrate Holy Week this year. In my experience, Holy Week is one of the busiest weeks of the church year. It starts with children waving palm branches in the sanctuary and ends with pews bursting full of people singing loudly about joy and new life. It’s a week full of movement and activity.
Maybe this year the invitation is to embrace the stillness of Holy Week. To ponder what it means to sit in the messy middle, when hope is hard to find and we don’t know how the story will end.
Maybe this year the invitation is to slow down and focus on what exactly is so holy about this week, without the stress of planning the perfect Easter outfits or Sunday meals.
Maybe this year this invitation is to learn something new about hope.
We’re gathering again online for worship this Palm Sunday at 10 AM on Facebook Live. I hope you’ll join me as we celebrate Palm Sunday and welcome the Savior who came to us, right in the messy middle.
See you Sunday,
Rachel
