Tessera Materials

Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, in your tender love for us you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon himself our nature, and to suffer death upon the Cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Scripture

Matthew 21:7-11, Luke 23:44-46

Reflection and Discussion

As we enter this week, our hearts take a journey. First, we hear the cries, 'Hosanna!" as they shouted on that first Palm Sunday.

• Take a moment and share together things for which your heart is experiencing joy and anticipation in this season.

However, days later the tone will drastically change. In the words of Karl Rahner, the German Jesuit theologian, Jesus "lets himself sink into the incomprehensibility of God" on Good Friday. In that moment, he surrenders to a Father he can no longer feel or comprehend—only trust. Jesus is the substitute acting as the faithful one of humanity.

• Take a moment and share a time in your life when you could only trust God as his presence was something you couldn't feel or comprehend. Maybe that time was years ago and maybe that time is now. What do you recall about that time?

This is where Good Friday begins to turn from tragedy to triumph. Jesus surrenders not with bitterness, desperation, or anger, but with trust, gratitude, and forgiveness. And in that surrender, the battle between good and evil—the most epic of all struggles—is won. God, in Christ, pours out forgiveness upon all humanity, ensnared as we are in the grip of evil and prone to wander in sin.

• At the cross we aren't seeing an angry God pouring out wrath on a Son. Unfortunately, this picture is often given to us in some forms of Christiniaty. Instead, God is revealed as one who endures the wrath of the powers and principalities of evil at work in the hearts of humankind. The sin of humankind is laid on the Son and the Father, in Christ, co-suffers with us at the hands of the powers and principalities while offering mercy and forgiveness. Why is this understanding of the latter so important as we consider the events of Good Friday?

As followers of Jesus awaiting his return to cleanse Creation of all evil, we too are invited to sink into the incomprehensibility of God rather than remain in the grip of the forces of evil: to trust when we do not understand, to love when we are hated, and to forgive even while we are being hurt. Each of us will face our own Good Fridays—often in the face of death. By all outward appearances, they may seem only bad. But if we yield ourselves in trust, they, too, can become good.

• How is living our lives in trust to God rather than living them in bitterness, desperation or anger a healing gift we give ourselves and the world?

Palm Sunday Sonnet by Malcolm Guite

from Sounding of the Seasons

Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.

Art: Entry into Jerusalem "Tempera colors, gold leaf, and ink on parchment" (9.13 in by 6.3 in) Date: ca. 1030-1040

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