This Lent (February 18-April 4), we are following A Sanctified Art‘s “Tell Me Something Good,” in our worship and Church School. We’re looking at what was central to Jesus’ life and ministry: radical welcome, love for neighbors, care for the vulnerable, nourishment for the hungry, nonviolence in the face of injustice.
We usually enter Palm Sunday enthusiastically waving our palms, remembering that enigmatic moment when Jesus re-entered Jerusalem. In some years, we’ve even circled the block around our church to re-enact the enthusiastic procession.
We don’t know how many people were at that first Palm Sunday (Mark 11:1-11). But we know they yelled out, “Hosanna!” meaning “we beg of you, save us!” They were desperate for a liberation leader. Jesus knew the week wouldn’t end well, that all the controversy he had stirred up had caught up with him and he was facing danger.
Some Christian traditions observe Palm Sunday by fast-forwarding into the passion of the week and the trial that Jesus will face.
This Sunday, we will lean into our awareness of mortality and our communion with the saints, as our Chancel Choir centers our worship around John Rutter’s elegiac and pastoral Requiem. It promises to be a beautiful and soul-stirring worship, one that causes us to reflect on how we keep hope and our awareness of the eternal alive during the everyday tumult of our wider world.
We invite you to come, hear, see and start your Holy Week in the contemplative beauty of this music.
In faith,
Kent
Image from digitalpastor.org.
