Reflections on Passion Sunday

Today we start Holy Week with Passion Sunday.  We triumphantly and publicly herald the entrance of Our Savior into Jerusalem.  We herald His coming as the Great Warrior and leader who will saves from our enemies, then within minutes we are crying Crucify Him! Crucify Him!  How often do we do this in our lives?  We praise God on those days when we wake up and everything is going great.  But then when He asked me to do something, to change, to witness to my faith and risk myself.  How often do I turn away like Peter did, and have I asked His forgiveness for the times I cried Crucify Him?

Today I was lucky enough to be Alter Serving.  As we read the Passion I became aware of the fact that I was standing next to the tabernacle so the Beloved was there.  The one who had been beaten, betrayed, and Crucified was there.  Our Passion is so clean so unemotional, but I could remember the same scenes from the Passion of the Christ.  I especially remember the scene where Peter hears the cock crow and Jesus looks at Him.  The One who dies for us is there.  How can we not weep for what He went through and I am thinking, one more week and I can have back what I gave up for Lent. And He is there, waiting to die for us.  He freely chooses out of love for us to die that death for us.  What am I willing to do for Him? Am I willing to die for Him?  Am I willing to die to myself for Him?  Am I at least willing to give some of my time for Him?

The hardest day this week for me is Friday afternoon until Saturday evening.  To think of the time when Christ wasn't here.  Now He is here always in a tabernacle somewhere.  But there was a time 2000 years ago when we were without Him.  It makes me so sad.  I hate to see the empty open tabernacle, so like a tomb.  The alter is stripped, the world is broken.  But at the sametime I can still sit with Him.  Like a wake or a deathbed.  Just sit with Him and keep Him company.

The comes Easter......but I am getting a head of myself.  We have to wait, and wait makes it all that much sweeter.