Pay attention to the details.

And another thing for today: 

Palm and Passion Sunday holds a lot of Scripture for us. There’s so much that could be said. Year after year, I tend to let the Word stand on its own that week, because the Scripture also says it so well.

Jesus knows. He knows what is coming. He knows Judas will betray him. He knows the same crowds that cheered, “Lord, save us!” on Sunday will cry, “Crucify him!” on Friday. He knows that Peter is sincere when he says that he will go to prison and death with his Lord, just as he knows that Peter will deny him three times that very night.

Jesus knows, too, that the Roman centurion will see who God is that Friday. The very man whose job it was to kill him is the one who will declare that surely, he is the Son of God. Jesus knows that the people who think they are defeating him are also making the way for his ultimate victory.

It isn’t fair. None of this is fair. Jesus doesn’t deserve this. So much of life is living through things we don’t deserve, whether they’re childhood traumas, diseases with no known cause, or the effects of other people’s sins. Jesus gets the full human experience, good and bad, while he walks this earth.

As we walk together through this holiest of weeks, I invite you to . Where are the little bits of joy and hope along the way, like the women who weep for Jesus while he walks to Golgotha? Where are the moments of irony, like the robe Herod’s soldiers put on Jesus to mock him? Where does all seem lost? And how do we hang on until the page turns for the next chapter? How do we sit in grief? How do we hold onto hope?

Where is God speaking to you in these passages? Where will God connect with you this week, this year, this season? The stories are old, but God’s mercy is always new. Come listen together. Come worship together. Come be God’s people, saved and serving, in this day and time.