Saturday, April 12, 2014

And So It Begins

Holy Week begins as every Christian walk begins, with Jesus coming into our lives.  Our individual Palm Sunday may be as public as that first one: a religious rally, an eager crowd.  For others, as it was for me, the event is quieter, more personal.  But always a palm branch waves in our hearts: He is here . . . at last, at last!

And once He has made His triumphal entry into our hearts, we experience "little Palm Sundays" all along the way.  Each time we receive love or forgiveness - and recognize that it is God Who is entering our lives in this way - we are once more standing on the royal road, welcoming the King.  Palm Sunday represents all our personal encounters with God.

And only that.  Some of the people who cried Hosanna on that first Palm Sunday mistook their personal experience for the whole of the truth.  They had seen the Savior, they believed the battle was over.  They mistook the beginning for the end.  They thought the struggle was behind them; in fact the fiercest fight was just ahead.

-- Elizabeth Sherrill, excerpt from The Struggle Begins in The Stone That Rolled Away

No comments: