Palm Sunday Reflection

Palm Sunday, 24 March 2013

Today is Palm or Passion Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, the most sacred time in the Christian’s year.

Jesus journeyed from the transfiguration (the disciples experiencing Jesus' Risen Life) on Mount Hermon to the suffering and passion of Jerusalem, to die and to rise for humanity. 

Jesus Christ is for all of humanity

Jesus Christ reconciles humanity and Divinity.

Jesus Christ reconciles humanity and humanity.

This Good News, this Gospel is for all of creation for all time.

Jesus embraced his suffering for all of humanity because he recognized that his life was not his own, that it was a Life that he shared with the Father .

The whole of Jesus’ life: humility and service

• From His birth in a manger in Bethlehem.
• Being brought up as a son of a tradesman in Nazareth.
• To his being baptized by John in the river Jordan.
• The temptations in the wilderness.
• His ministry to the sick and suffering.
• His ministry to the marginalized and outcasts.
• His living on the charity of others.
• His entering Jerusalem on a donkey.
• His passion and death on the cross.

Today on Passion Sunday, we recognize that His suffering and dying is for all of humanity.

• So that we may be in loving relationship with God and with one another. 
• So that we may be FREE AND EQUAL with one another.
• that human societies may be free and equal.

Our Witness: Is it Hosanna or Crucify Him?

We have to bear witness to this beautiful truth in Jesus Christ – that we are all made free and equal. Do we live our lives in such a way that we are critical of those who are different from us, who challenge us: in other words, "Crucify Him, crucify them." Or are our lives lived in such a way that regardless of the person or issue before us, we can affirm life in the power of a Love bigger than we are? In other words, "Hosanna to Christ who is Lord of Life."

As a Church, let us know and share this Good News with our families, friends, our community and the world, as we seek to live a life of humble service to those around us, and to those most in need.

You who are without sin, cast the first stone

What a journey we have been on during this lent. From the ashes & mortality of Ash Wednesday to the turning of the prodigal son to the love and compassion of the Father. And now...

“The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle.”

• Wow! What a scene.
• What a desire to judge and condemn. 

Try to imagine the shame and guilt of being caught at sin, and then being publicly displayed?

Recall any of your own sins….and imagine being forced to come into the middle of a group of people  to scrutinize and judge and condemn you.

The scribes and Pharisees want an answer from Jesus….and he remains silent…he wrote on the ground with his finger…

• the law of Moses was written in stone.
• Yet Jesus writes our sins in the sand…sins that cannot be remembered and held against us no more.
• He is the one who takes them away.

When Jesus does speak, this is what he has to say

“You who are without sin cast the first stone”

Try to recall some of the stones you have thrown at others.

The judging of others must stop. 

This can only happen as we mature in our surrender to and participation in the life of the Resurrection, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and knowing our unity with the Father.

We are called to love the image of God in every human being regardless of what they do or don’t do, have done or haven't done, will do or will not do.

We are on a Lenten journey to the suffering and death of Calvary, and onto the joy, freedom, life and love of the Resurrection.

As we repent and turn again to the Father, there is no sin in our lives or in anyone else’s life,  that is beyond the power of the Cross of the Son of God.

The risen and glorified Jesus loves us. He does not judge us, but calls us to turn away from our sin, and turn toward Him Who is Love.

Let us embrace one another and help each other up when we fall as we continue our pilgrimage into the fullness of Jesus’ Resurrection. 

The Burning Bush of Divine Life

As we continue our Lenten pilgrimage, the biblical themes of mountain and wilderness are still present to us.

Mountain and Wilderness

Moses led the flock “beyond the wilderness to the mountain of God.”

This is a foreshadowing of Moses leading the Hebrew people out of Egypt, to the holy Mountain of God, and on into the Promised Land of abundance. A sort of  God planned “reccee,” so that Moses would know where he was going with the people of God.

A shepherd (or parent or friend or mentor) can only take others to places where he or she has been!

Wrestling and Truth

The wilderness is a spiritual place to wrestle with God. It is about pealing off the layers of lies and illusions within us that hinder our realization of true self and true God.

We need to be on a journey of discovering that our deepest self is the very image and essence of God.

The Mountain of the Burning Bush

It is in such a spiritual place that Moses had an experience of the living God.

An experience that called him and the Israelites out of bondage and death and into life and promise.

Like Moses and the Hebrew people, we the church are called to ever enter into the painful journey of change and transformation…we are called to REPENT. 

Jesus says that “if you do not repent you will perish”

Repentant and Unrepentant

To repent is to turn toward God and change. And the foundational change is our growing awareness of loving union with God. This awareness is the fullness of Life itself.

To be unrepentant, is to ignore God, to be unchanged, to not know your loving union with God. This unawareness is death and hell.

When we are grounded in our “Burning Bush” experience of the living God…

• we can hear God’s voice calling us forward from bondage and death and into Love and Life; 
• we can hear God’s voice calling us to journey forward through all forms of change, knowing that He is with us;
• we can hear God calling us to surrender to the Love that unifies and makes whole and complete. 

When we are grounded in our experience of the Living God, we will be more able to follow Jesus to Jerusalem and to offer our lives  for the benefit of others.