Lenten Reflection for March 24th

Hello friends, 

Today marks the beginning of Holy Week, the most holy days leading to Easter. This week is filled with highs and lows of emotions in the Scripture readings and the services we participate in.

Today, on Palm Sunday, we commemorate Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when he was welcomed by crowds of people holding palm branches and who spread their cloaks on the ground before him, an action reserved only for those who were held in the highest respect in the community.

Jerusalem itself was the place of the Temple where so many of the ancient kings of Israel offered sacrifice to God.  Every year for decades and centuries the high priest entered the Temple to offer sacrifices.  This time however, as Jesus entered Jerusalem, though the people didn’t realise it at the time, the entire city of Jerusalem became the new Temple with Jesus as the final High Priest.  As we know, He was greeted with joyful shouts of “Hosanna!” but later this would change to shouts of “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

We have the blessing of the benefit of knowing the full story of Christ’s Passion, death and resurrection, as we reflect on these events this week, let’s make sure to enter further into prayer, preparing our hearts more intently during this upcoming Holy week.

For our younger brothers and sisters in Christ:

Today we celebrate Palm Sunday and it’s the beginning of what is known as Holy Week in the Church. This week will bring up a lot of different emotions and it might feel confusing. Today we celebrate in joy, remembering when Jesus entered Jerusalem and was greeted by crowds of people waving palms and laying their coats on the path in front of him, acknowledging Jesus as a Kingly figure. But as the week goes on we will also hear about Jesus teaching us how to be humble and serve others, how Jesus is betrayed by one of his friends and dies on the cross.

Today, as we celebrate, we may feel like we want to rush past the sad parts of this week, hurrying forward into celebrating Easter. However, it is important that we have time this week to learn about, reflect and pray about the sacrifice Jesus made for us all when he died on the cross to free us from our sins, the wrong things we do in life.

Taking some time to think and talk about these events will help us to appreciate the Love Jesus shows us even more when we do finally enter the Easter Season!

God bless you!