Walking from Palm Sunday to Good Friday

We are now in Holy Week.  Many of us celebrated Palm Sunday in church yesterday, many with actual palm branches, commemorating the day in which Jesus comes into Jerusalem, knowing full well that it was here that he would meet his 'end', so to speak.  He was greeted with all of the adoration deserving of a king, with shouts of admiration. 

In a very powerful devotional experience years ago when I counselled at a kids camp, we walked up 'cross hill' as it was affectionately known, to the wooden cross erected there, overlooking the camp.  Each child brought forward a slip of paper forward.  Mine said 'Kevin's Sins'... each camper had a personalised card they had made with their name.  We nailed each of the 100 slips of paper to the cross and the kids were allowed to leave once their paper was hung.  I have a photo of that cross up in my house still: cross with sins attached and kids playing on the field below... 'released' as it were from their sins by Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

The next time many of us will be in church will be to celebrate and mark Good Friday.  I've always found this an uneasy transition.  It's kind of like a movie or a bad dream where everything slowly starts to unravel and gets worse and worse. How did we get from the triumphal entry with shouts of 'Hosanna!'  to screams of 'Crucify Him!' less than a week later?  It has underscored for me the fact that Jesus' disciples and his followers, and indeed the world, misunderstood who He really was and what He really was there to do.

I wonder about our own faith walk.  How much of our own view of Christ is made into what we want him to be?  When we approach God in worship, do we really understand fully what and who He is?  I'm inclined to think that we also need to do this Holy Week walk.  Where have we made God into our own object?  Where have we sold him short?  How have we misunderstood and underestimated his power?  In what ways do we need to acknowledge our own sinfulness and take it to him on the cross?

This week, may you experience the heaviness of your own sins, may we as a group of people acknowledge our own shortcomings and the ways in which we have often made God into something of our own crafting, and may we all end up at the cross - the only thing that can release us into Joy.  May we be ready to release our sins to the healing power of Jesus' death and resurrection.  

May your week, in this way, be truly Holy.