During worship on Sunday, while preaching about the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, I kept mixing the description of this Sunday, between "Passion" and "Palm" Sunday. As a child, I looked forward with great excitement when the staid Morrow Memorial United Methodist Church in which I grew up would, in a very real sense, let its "hair down," allowing children to nearly trot and skip down the center aisle with palm branches that were almost as tall as I was. Palm Sunday was all about the palms.
Now as an adult, who has tasted the pilgrim life, this Sunday is all about the Passion of this week. I don't mean in a Mel Gibson kind-of-way. The Passion I am talking about are the swirling, conflicting emotions that I feel inside of me--inside of all of us--when it comes to understanding our relationship to the Divine. After all, what is it about us and our forbears who can sing "Hosanna" on one day of the week, and by Friday shout angrily "Crucify him"? Both of those emotions--adulation and destruction--are embedded deep in the human psyche...no, the very human self, mind, soul and body.
It is Tuesday. I await with hope, fear, and faith the coming days of this week-long pilgrimage of faith.
Pilgrim peace, Brett
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