Reflections on the
Word
Palm/Passion
Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14-27:66
We begin Holy Week today with the invitation to enter into this journey with Jesus as fully and as consciously as possible.
This is a week of dramatic contrasts – we joyfully bring
Jesus into
It seems it doesn’t take much to turn the crowd from one extreme to its opposite. I shudder at the thought, and wonder at my own inconstancies.
Jesus seems to understand the fickleness of human beings. He knows some will betray him, that he will be left alone at the end.
He could have taken a different path at many points but he chooses not to do so. He is a person of integrity, who, to remain true to himself, must follow this path that seems to lead to death and destruction. In the garden, Jesus prayed that things might be different, and through that prayer received the strength to carry on.
As the blackness of suffering and death winds tighter around him he clings to that small ray of light called hope.
He hopes even as he cries out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?”
In the end, hope is all he has, and as
Jesus in his humanness did not know the outcome of his suffering. He believed in life after death, but, like us, did not know what would really happen. He hung onto his hope, sure in the deep down knowledge that God was with him, within him, intimately and personally.
Jesus led the way showing us that no matter how dismal or frightening the present or future may appear to us, this God of Jesus, our God, is also with us intimately and personally, who gives us hope.
Let us then respond to the invitation to follow Jesus this Holy week, into the depths, knowing that our God is with us, giving us hope, hope that will not disappoint.