Beginning the Journey
This Sunday we will enter into the accounts and drama of the most important week of our liturgical calendar, Holy Week. As I preached on Sunday, we find great depths in the tension of two seemingly contrary things coming together to convey intrinsic truths. I quoted this from Francis Spufford’s article, “Where’s the next brick?” found on the Mockingbird site, “God the creator of all things… came closest to us in paradoxes. Wisdom, in foolishness; strength, in weakness; sovereignty over the immense empire of matter, in helpless self-sacrifice, in a choking man brought to death by a shrugging government.” This Sunday will offer us the most powerful example of such paradoxes as we gather for Palm Sunday.
Palm Sunday begins outside with shouts of “Hosannah in the highest!” and “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” Jesus’ arrival and triumphal entry into Jerusalem is complete with people laying down their coats and palm branches before Jesus as he rides in on the young donkey. As we process into the church together singing the classic hymn “All glory, laud, and honor” we brace ourselves for the shift that will take place as we approach the reading of the Passion which tells us of the events that lead up to and result in Jesus’ death on the cross. The opening line of the morning “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord” comes to completion with an inscription above his head, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”
Only through the unexpected paradoxical ways in which God works can the solemnity of this moment be the root of all our hope and assurance. Only in the one true God does life come from death. I pray you will begin this Holy Week with us on Sunday as we hear how our God has done all things necessary for our true and complete life in Him.
We love you and God loves you,
Josh Condon+