Thick Relationships

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of the biggest week of the year for us. The mysteries we travel through together are the deepest and widest in the world, and I don't expect to ever fully comprehend them in my lifetime- Jesus' joyous welcome into Jerusalem that turns sour, the Last supper with foot washing and the institution of communion, death on the cross, resurrection. How do I even begin to explain these things? What more words can be said that deepen rather than cheapen our relationship to these mighty and mysterious acts by which we were saved.

In the first instance, I simply show up to the liturgy each of those days, doing my very best to keep an open heart to the movement of the Spirit in each hour or so of worship.

One of the ways that the mystery keeps deepening for me is that we continue to travel each year through these mysteries together. Our relationship gets thicker, not thinner. A symbol is the wooden cross I bring to the front of the church on Good Friday. It now stands at the back. Every year, it grows thicker with nails as we each hammer one in each year, symbolizing some piece of our lives we are handing over to God to be transformed.

Whether this is your first Holy Week at St. Paul's or your thirtieth, you will be participating in a community with thick, loving relationships where pilgrims with open hearts and a desire to know Jesus are always welcome.