This year during Holy Week, are we ready to let die any notion that our goodness, our right behavior, can save us or make us right with God? Are we prepared to honestly admit that we don’t always look for Jesus in other people, and we don’t always let other people see Jesus in us? Are we ready to die within ourselves and in our actions, die to our prejudices, blind spots, fears and insecurities? Are we prepared to crucify injustice, anger, judgment and mistrust? Will we cry out, “Hosanna to the King of Kings!” and mean “Save us, Jesus! Save us from our ourselves, our possessions and our efforts to control?”
Something must die to make way for rebirth. And the dying is scary.
But Holy Week is all about dying…in particular, dying so that we might live. Who can help us with that? To whom shall we cry: “Hosanna! Save us!”?
This message is excerpted from “The meaning of ‘Hosanna’” by Julia Seymour in the March/April 2022 Gather magazine. Today is Palm Sunday. Today we commemorate Oscar Arnulfo Romero, Bishop of El Salvador, martyr, 1980.
Copyright © 2024 Women of the ELCA. Inquiries for permission to reproduce should be directed to [email protected].