Palm Sunday

It is hard to enter Holy Week first with Hosannas and then the Passion. It is almost too much for one service. But is that not what Jesus had to experience--being feted one moment and being crucified the next?

But none of this touches the mind. It hits much lower--the solar plexis perhaps. I have long grown used to the shouts of "Crucify him" from the congregation during the reading of the Passion. I hear my voice speak the words of forgiveness to rabble and yet this season they seem to hold a bit of sawdust. The bitterness of the struggle in the Episcopal Church is too much, too Byzantine. Even victory seems a waste of all that is holy.

The name calling, the wonderful cutting phrases that abound in the blogosphere seem more the words of the crowd than "crucify", the one-upmanship of bishops on this side of the Atlantic or the other call forth "father, forgive". And it makes the passion of Christ too much to stand at the cross. I cannot be like Peter and run away and cry. I can but stand at the cross and watch. But I do not hear the Centurion's call. I cannot find in any of this "This truly was the Son of God".

I know there is resurrection--I know it deep in my soul. But it is as if I am too weary to embrace the tomb. I wonder if there is too much bitterness in the Church to ever know resurrection. And will we arise like Christ or like Lazarus, wrapped in our sepulcral duds rather clothed in righteousness.

At the moment the Tomb is lutheran-like--a place to bide the transformation.