It's Palm Sunday - a very unexpectedly different one. For the first time, we cannot, any of us, gather in a crowd to welcome Jesus and sing Hosannah - except virtually. We cannot wave palms, unless we've kept them from previous years - or improvise, noting that scripture refers to branches or greenery. We begin Holy Week in our homes, and, God willing, we will still be there for Easter - not in our churches, or with friends, or away on holiday or retreat, but at home, currently our only or main place for encountering God and living our call to love.
But whether we stay indoors or not, Jesus still comes into our lives, and into our hearts. He still enters our towns and cities, still rides down our roads; still invites us to greet him, to bid him enter, and to journey with him towards his ultimate outpouring of love. Will we go out to welcome him? - and who will we bring with us? Maybe the people we most long to be with, those we hold in our prayers and our hearts... maybe those who we know are journeying in their own way towards Jerusalem, or entering into their own passion and death right now... or maybe those pouring out their energy and their love as healthworkers, carers and keyworkers...
We can bring them together, bring them with us, into the love and radiance of the King of glory... and let him enter wherever we have previously kept closed (cf Psalm 24).
And instead of palms and greenery, what if we wave, and lay before Jesus branches greening with kindness, with selflessness, compassion and generous, un-isolated love...? What if these green shoots could be our blessing, and our praise...?
Have a blessed Holy Week everyone; and may this new, somewhat strange, but potentially enriching way of keeping it enable us all to enter more deeply into the mysteries of Jesus' suffering, death and Resurrection...
But whether we stay indoors or not, Jesus still comes into our lives, and into our hearts. He still enters our towns and cities, still rides down our roads; still invites us to greet him, to bid him enter, and to journey with him towards his ultimate outpouring of love. Will we go out to welcome him? - and who will we bring with us? Maybe the people we most long to be with, those we hold in our prayers and our hearts... maybe those who we know are journeying in their own way towards Jerusalem, or entering into their own passion and death right now... or maybe those pouring out their energy and their love as healthworkers, carers and keyworkers...
We can bring them together, bring them with us, into the love and radiance of the King of glory... and let him enter wherever we have previously kept closed (cf Psalm 24).
And instead of palms and greenery, what if we wave, and lay before Jesus branches greening with kindness, with selflessness, compassion and generous, un-isolated love...? What if these green shoots could be our blessing, and our praise...?
Have a blessed Holy Week everyone; and may this new, somewhat strange, but potentially enriching way of keeping it enable us all to enter more deeply into the mysteries of Jesus' suffering, death and Resurrection...
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