palm sunday

Palm Sunday, April 13

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer: By your cross, O Lord, you show the extravagance of your love for us.  Love than knows no limits, no boundaries.  Love that pours down upon us from every wound of your beloved Son.  More love than we could ever ask for or imagine.  When we are tempted to doubt the depths of your heart for us, let our eyes immediately look to Jesus crucified—and may all doubt be taken away.  In His name.  Amen.

Scripture Reading for the Day: Luke 19:28-44

Reading for Reflection:

     What do you do with a God who weeps?  Especially one that weeps over you and me?  He weeps, longing for us to know; to know what would truly bring us peace, to know the enormity of His heart, to know the depths of His love, intimately, the same way Adam knew Eve in Genesis 4:1.  He weeps because he sees the reality of our inner (and outer) landscape.  He knows our hearts.  He knows our pain.  He knows our struggle.  He knows our doubts.  He knows all of our ways, our compulsions and our patterns and our beliefs.  He knows all about what we really think will make life work, what we truly believe will give us peace.  And peace is so much more than a feeling—it is us, His beautiful creation, experiencing life as he intended it to be, the creation intent of God.  He weeps because he sees where our misguided thoughts and beliefs and ways will eventually take us, what they will eventually cost us, where they will eventually leave us.  He weeps because he desires all of our affections.  He weeps because he constantly yearns for us to recognize His passion—for us.  He weeps because he longs for us to know that he is the God that constantly comes to us, that relentlessly pursues us, all the way to the cross. 

     So as we enter Holy Week, may we join Jesus on his way to the cross.  May we fix our eyes on his weeping face.  May we come to know his abiding peace.  And may we recognize all of the times and all of the ways he comes to us, both this day and this week.

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                                        
Closing Prayer: Almighty and everlasting God, who in your tender love towards the human race sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross: grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord. (A Collect for Palm Sunday, Oremus)