The Oasis - April 9, 2025
Author: Rev. Eric Dupee
April 09, 2025
This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday and it marks the beginning of the holiest week of the Christian year. As always, I encourage you to join us for our special services. This Sunday is Palm Sunday. On Maundy Thursday, the confirmands will assist in leading the worship service. The music and solemnity of the Good Friday service provides a poignancy to the week.
Palm Sunday, begins the Holy Week by marking the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Author Ann Weems provides a wonderful image for how I’m thinking about Lent this year. In her book Kneeling in Jerusalem, she writes, “The way to Jerusalem looks suspiciously like Highway 40, and the pilgrims look suspiciously like you and me. I expected the road to Jerusalem to be crowded with holy people…. clerics and saints…. people who have kindness wrinkled in their faces and comfort lingering in their voices, but this is more like rush-hour…. horns blowing, people pushing, voices cursing…”
After expressing her dismay about her traveling companions and the busyness of road to Jerusalem, she writes, “Instead of holiness the highway is crammed with the cacophony of chaos. Is there no back road to Jerusalem? No quiet path where angels tend to weary travelers? No sanctuary from the noise of the world? Just this? Can this hectic highway be the highway to heaven?”
When the Way is not always quiet and peaceful, if we are not always accompanied by familiar faces, if chaos seems to surround us, it doesn’t necessarily mean we are on the wrong road. It might be exactly where God wants us to be. May your Holy Week be full and meaningful.
Blessings,
Eric
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