Palm Sunday 2010

greetings!

technically, today marks the end of the lenten season...

it is palm sunday...

40 days removed from ash wednesday...

it has flown by...

it has crept by...

it is gone...

how has this time span impacted us?

spiritually?

now, the beginning of holy week...

time for the "creasters" to get out their sunday best...

[creasters are those who faithfully attend worship ever christmas and easter...]

time to make plans for easter...

new clothes...

family gathering plans...

where will the kids stalk the eggs?

who has the best jesus "show" for the weekend...

where is the most audacious production...

who will give the best gifts?

who will spend the most for the delight of the consuming "community"?

and, almost as an afterthought...

it is easter sunday...

it is resurrection sunday...

easter is all about jesus being raised from the dead...

physically...

miraculously...

eternally...

or, will this true truth get lost in the celebrations of the other stuff???

maybe our preparation this week will free us to keep the main thing the main thing...

althought the lenten blog ends today with this entry...

[by the way, THANK YOU for reading and for your encouragement throughout the journey...]

i plan to blog through holy week...

[hope you will hang with me...]

i want my heart to be ready for next sunday...

and yours too...

from henri nouwen...

reflecting on the "path of waiting"...

"passion is a kind of waiting - waiting for what other people are going to do.

jesus went to jerusalem to announce the good news to the people of that city.

and jesus knew that he was going to put a choice before them: will you be my disciple, or will you be my executioner?

there is no middle ground here.

jesus went to jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say "yes" or "no".

that is the great drama of jesus' passion: he had to wait for their response.

what would they do?

betray him or follow him?

in a way, his agony is not simply the agony of approaching death.

it is also the agony of being out of control and of having to wait.

it is the agony of a god who depends on us to decide how to live out the divine presence among us.

it is the agony of the god who, in a very mysterious way, allows us to decide how god will be god.

here we glimpse the mystery of god's incarnation.

god became human not only to act among us but also to be the recipient of our responses.

. . . and that is the mystery of jesus' love.

jesus in his passion is the one who waits for our response.

precisely in that waiting the intensity of his love and god's is revealed to us."

can you feel the love???

HAPPY PALM SUNDAY!!!

guy