RoboPreacher

if you change The holy gospel according to St. Luke, the 19th chapter ! This and last year’s Palm Sunday presented a particular challenge for me . You see, I’ve been schooled in the tradition of Palm/ Passion Sunday. Not just Palm Sunday.   The logic of adding the Passion into Palm Sunday is to reduce the likelihood we’ll go directly from the ‘ Glory, Laud, and Honor ’ of Palm Sunday into the glorious victory of Easter Sunday. If you avoid the darkness, distress, and downright doom of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, you are not only missing the power of Jesus’ empty tomb. You are also robbing yourself of the opportunity to reckon with those ambiguous dimensions of your own life. The problem , though, is there’s no good way to try and fit the Passion into an at-home Palm Sunday service. Maybe there’s never been a good way to shoehorn the Passion into Palm Sunday, and life in the time of COVID is just making that apparent. Either way, all we can observe today is the festivities...

Palm / Passion Sunday Preparation for Holy Week: Palm / Passion Sunday: Combination of Palm Sunday and The Passion Done for folks who can’t attend Holy Week Service PLEASE TRY TO ATTEND AS MUCH OF THE SERVICE AS YOU CAN, THOUGH Almost feels “Schizophrenic”  but it’s actually, combining these two moments, makes a similar point Matthew is trying to make in his Gospel… Now onto Matthew: Matthew’s Passion is the most “ordinary,” or all too ordinary… Leaders stir up crowd (control crowd) Ignore Prophetic Dream (how Joseph warned) Sham trial Crowd gets swept up in the drama “Crucify Him” Sports crowds… Consequences / outcome of all this: Betrayal (kiss) Deception Boasting Denial of Friendship Desertion Arrest Mocking Suicide  Murder  That all is at the heart of our faith… It’s heart-breaking, but Matthew won’t look away from this reality… So, where’s God in all this? “This took place to fulfill scri...