thesoulpurposedotorg

I love Palm Sunday – I come expecting a parade of smiling children handing out palms to anxious adult hands. Adults smiling lovingly, grateful to be in the presence of innocence, remember their own long ago perfection, innocence and joy. A time before Good Fridays of grief, confusion, abandonment, and being paralyzed in the face of wrongful death.
Our pastor read through the entire Passion story according to the gospel of Matthew. This was not the usual paragraph or two we expect to hear from some gospel each Sunday waiting for the sermon to make sense of it all. This reading could not be so easily ignored. Nearly 3 chapters. Sometimes I close my eyes and just listen. Today, I followed along in the pew Bible and was surprised by what I have missed or forgotten or taken for granted.
Pilate’s wife played an important role. I never noticed. She had a nightmare in which she saw the consequences of condemning this innocent Saviour. She wrote a note that was delivered to Pilate as he questioned Jesus, The Lord of his wife, a clearly good and innocent man. He washed his hands of him but did not interfere in the consequences of an angry mob. Just hours later Jesus The Lord, Messiah, Innocent gives up his life on a cruel cross. And the dead, the Holy dead, break out of their tombs days before Jesus’ own ressurection. I can’t imagine this. I’ve forgotten the the spectacle of long dead holy men and women wandering in our cruel world. What did they do? Whom did they visit? Once again innocent as the babes who waved those palm branches. I want my heart, my presence, my intentions to be that of a resurrected holy person wandering in the midst of suffering and being an agent of light and hope and blessing. More often I feel the confines of a body on it’s way to the tomb. This week I want to remember our original innocence, that child-like joy, the lense of perfection and love through which our Creator God sees us, his beloved children.