Holy Week

Holy Week approaches. I’ll cut sword fern branches from the woods to hand to children to parade in on Sunday to shouts of, “Hosanna!” Dixie will make a simple paste with flour so Zack can hang art work along the front of Mitchell House. My neighbor will stuff dozens of eggs to host the bus stop kids.

It’s a strange weekend. From the outside it’s praise and sorrow and eggs all mixed up. But that’s life, isn’t it? It’s not all bad, but quite a bit is significantly heavy. Many of our celebrations are tinged with grief, or with the anticipation of grief.

Followers of Jesus can hold more than one thing at the same moment. When Jesus died on the cross he said raw and hard things that we’ve been leaning into on Sundays. He expresses distress, abandonment, death and Jesus also vocalizes surrender and even anticipates joy. Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross and despised the shame.”

Take a moment and attend to the complexities you’re carrying into this Holy Week.

• What is easy to celebrate?

• What is grieving you?

  Where are you anticipating loss?

• Where are you hopeful with joy?

I invite you to walk with intention into this Holy Week. If you’re able to worship with us on Sunday, you’ll be given a way to pray one of the Songs of the Savior every day during Holy Week.

Friday, please join us for a walk through the street art of the stations of the cross. They will be displayed directly on the front of our building at 1153 Mitchell Ave. Be hopeful with us for the joy of Christ’s resurrection to fill us on Sunday morning when we gather for Easter worship.

Thank you for marking time with us. I look forward to walking through this week with you.

Megan