Palm Sunday 2020 (April 5th, 2020)
Today is the beginning of Holy Week according to the Christian tradition. The church commemorates the historical account Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem as King (Matthew 21:19) on this day.
This event was foretold many years before it happened (Zech 9:9). He was greeted with Palm being on his path. Soon after that glorious welcoming, Jesus was arrested and eventually crucified. He claimed to be the Messiah and yet He was not the Messiah that Jewish people were anticipating. Thi account of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection forms the foundation of the Christian faith and its message of forgiveness and restoration.
Messiah means Savior. Christians believe that Jesus is the Savior who rescues humanity from their broken and sinful conditions.
For the last few days as I talked to different people (Christians and others) about how they are coping with what is happening in the world with Covid-19, many asked the question: "Can we be spared from the worst possible outcome of this pandemic? In another word, can we be saved from the most destructive conclusion?"
A) We in general are looking for a saviour when we are at the end of the rope. We then experience a deep sense of helplessness and we call out for help. Some may blame God for our human calamity and others may just resign themselves to despair. When all we know don't seem to make sense and cannot provide much hope for what is unknown.
B) We discover our feeling of emptiness as we pay attention to our inner life. We look for things to fill that hole in our lives and learn that nothing out there will be able to do that. Power and Wealth don't seem to be able to satisfy that need. We become restless and distracted. Some ended up relying on different forms of addictions to fill that hole. Yet, the cry for meaning doesn't stop.
C) We then experience a new form of alienation, not just from people we know but from ourselves. This alienation can be so overwhelming that we try to cope with it by having more fragmentation in our life. There many "selves" within us and many of them are fabricated and not created by God.
Depression is on the rise because of this. God Bless you on this Palm Sunday and May you find the Messiah you need to take you to the place where you don't need to run, to masquerade, to pretend or to control.
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”