The rain detoured our procession from outside to inside the church. With the blessing of our palms, following the cross, we sang, “Hosanna to the Son of David”
as we processed to our seats.
We stood listening to the reading of the Passion of Christ, singing the refrain “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom”. Soberly we sat for the
homily.
Br Phil began, “What more needs to be said?” He then highlighted what we had heard. “The moment of abject failure is the moment of glory. This was the
moment he came for, the moment we were saved”.
Br Phil spoke of the image of Jesus as the humble aspect of a humble God, a God who was stripped naked, stripped of glory to die on a cross.
If you have ever been falsely accused.
If you have ever been abandoned by life,
If you have every been asked to give everything up, stripped of dignity,
Jesus know exactly how you feel.
In his passion, carrying his cross Jesus falls, and Jesus now assists us in our falling.
We see that everything in God that falls can and will rise.
This mystery of our faith gives us the opportunity to enter into Jesus’ life.
Bro Phil implored us to “make this week a holy week”.
Today, in the Passion reading we envisioned Jesus “beaten, stripped, and naked on the cross before the entire world. We saw ugliness in the sight of humanity
turned to beauty in the sight of God”
In his closing remarks, Bro Phil recited the second reading from Philippians 2:6-11.
“Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave
coming in likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this,
God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and
on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
Peace, Anne
Gallery from this Lent:
