Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Lectionary A
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 26:14- 27:66
or Matthew 27:11-54
Psalm 31:9-16
This Sunday, April 5, 2020, the Christian world will commemorate Palm Sunday. This year, however, due to COVID-19 and our concern for the health and safety of our flocks, we will bless, wave and display our palm branches at home to celebrate Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
In this week’s video homily, which is now available to view (above), I reflect on what it means to celebrate Palm Sunday during this COVID-19 season. To truly realize Palm Sunday and all that it represents, I urge you to find a time and a way to be quiet with God. It is during this stillness that we can contemplate Christ’s anguish and eventual triumph over death – the promise of the resurrection. To live in this COVID-19 time is an invitation to walk in the path of Christ’s joy and suffering. While it is our human nature to yearn for control, it is God who by faith and by what he demonstrated with his son Jesus Christ proves that he is, in fact, in control. Death, i.e. coronavirus, does not have the last word. Our assurance is eternal life.