The Passion
This week brought the announcement many of us sensed coming: the deployment of the 82nd Airborne to the Middle East. If the repercussions of this war hadn’t already touched your circles, they now undeniably will. The 82nd represents our family, our neighbors, and our friends. These are the people we worship alongside on Sunday; the ones we greet in the grocery store, meet for coffee, or share a beer with at the bar. The 82nd is deploying, and this marks a solemn moment in both our public and personal lives.
This upcoming week, the Church echoes the need for solemnity. Holy Week is one unlike any other in our Faith. It is the week we walk the Passion: a story of love and anger, friendship and betrayal, injustice and truth, death and life. It is the very story of our Faith, our relationship with our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer—and it all begins with Palm Sunday.
Palm Sunday is perhaps the strangest of the Episcopal liturgies. It begins with the commemoration of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This Sunday, we will gather with First Baptist in their yard, and our shared celebration will echo the joy of that day when Jesus rode a donkey through the city gates. We will repeat the cries of those who saw him in the flesh: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” It is powerful. It is exciting. It is hopeful.
But hope fades quickly once we reach the church doors.
It does not take long for the tide to turn against Jesus. Once our procession ends, the passion begins. We hear how Judas betrays his Rabbi, how religious and political authorities fail in justice, how peace is prosecuted, and how innocence is murdered.
Palm Sunday reveals the swiftly changing tide of the human heart. Thin faith falters in the face of adversity. And so Palm Sunday is a warning of our own proclivity to loosen resolve and abandon our loyalties when pressures rise.
As some of our bravest citizens now experience the whiplash of leaving their families and communities for a hostile land, we must build the fortitude within ourselves not to forget them in their sacrifice. We are called to support their families, to hold them in our prayers, and to hope for the day when wars cease and our men and women return home in safety and in wholeness.
The ultimate truth of Holy Week is this: even at the darkest hour, the light of God is at work, and the darkness will not overcome it.
Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
For those in the Armed Forces of our Country, (BCP p. 823)
Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Our Country (BCP p. 820)