Nobody wants to hear the Passion story. I’ve heard of people trying to make Palm Sunday easier by moving the Passion story to the end of that service, with a pause before it so people can leave if they want.
I know, it’s no fun, that old story of how that poor traveling preacher was betrayed by one of his friends, abandoned by almost all the others, and then murdered by a governor who was manipulated into it by envious men who were supposed to be people of faith.
It’s a sad, sordid story. But we need hear it, all of it. We can’t go straight from palms to Easter lilies without a long hard look at the crown of thorns. Once we begin to understand that Jesus took on all our sorrow and all our pain and gave them meaning by his holy death and saving resurrection, then we can kneel in humble gratitude for the immeasurable, incomprehensible grace of our loving and redeeming God.
This message is excerpted from “Nobody wants to hear it” by Audrey Novak Riley from the March 29, 2018, blog of the Women of the ELCA. Today is Palm Sunday.
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