And so it begins...again

As I first walked in, the main vestibule didn't give it away. The palms spread on the table were something to be gathered, but I moved toward the sanctuary. It was there that it hit me: the beginning of Holy Week.

I knew the calendar, but I hadn't yet felt the emotional significance. My wife Jan and I have been experiencing this now for over three decades, the continuum of Lent through the Triduum and the Resurrection. It has an impact on your senses and perspective that is profound. It is undeniably there.

Your eyes lift toward the ceiling, and you thank God for yet another chance to live through the week, to experience it.

The baptismal font was drained of water, as it had been throughout Lent, but handsome red fabric lined parts of the font, in an interesting design. The church had been darkened. The recessed lights in the high ceiling above were on, but shadows fell across the altar, on which sat crucibles for the bread and wine.

It was Palm Sunday, perhaps the most liturgically schizophrenic day in the church each year. It begins with Jesus' triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, astride a donkey, a temporal, and temporary king. I suppose that's part of the message. Then you move on to the Passion, where Jesus clearly was having a really bad time of it.

Betrayed, denied, tortured, humiliated, mocked. And He knew it was coming. In a moment of weakness, he wonders whether the cup will pass from his lips. But he steels himself for what is coming, because he always knew, didn't he?

Now that's courage. That's grace.