We made it to Easter! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!!

What does this mean to us really? This is a central piece of our Christian faith, but really and truly, what difference does resurrection make? We have been thinking about the wholehearted Jesus all throughout Lent; how Jesus was one of us as a human being and lived human life with compassion, courage and integrity. Jesus died the same way. But what now? We are called to follow Jesus, but can we too be made whole? Can the fragments of our lives that are broken or don’t make sense to us now be brought together and made into something new and beautiful and hopeful? Can tired, burnt out, cynical people (AND churches!) experience resurrection? And what might that look like?

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This service is one of the most special  of our entire church year—it is when we remember as a community something that makes Christianity unique among all religions throughout the world and throughout history. We believe in a God who does not remain in Heaven, removed and all-powerful, but rather becomes one of us and joins us in human suffering. It is a mystery so great that we return to it year after year. This service includes a remembrance of the Last Supper and walks through Jesus’ crucifixion as told in the Gospel of John by using scripture, song and prayers of confession. Our prayer is that, this year, the story of what Jesus endured on the cross will speak to you and your own personal struggles in new and meaningful ways.

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In this culmination of Lent, we enter into Holy Week and we begin with Palm Sunday. For us and many sister congregations, we will celebrate with joy and process into our sanctuary as a way to remember the parade of acclaim that accompanied Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Yet, we also cannot forget (and neither could Jesus) that He was coming into this city one last time in His life. He was about to experience the worst that humanity could do. Many churches also see this day as Passion Sunday; as the first footsteps on the harrowing journey to the cross. As we follow the Narrative Lectionary’s prescribed journey through scripture, Jesus’ trial is finished in John 19. He has been handed over to be crucified, and the inscription on His cross reads “King of the Jews”. Judea’s ruler Pilate has ordered that to be so, much to the chagrin of the religious leaders who consider this blasphemy. Yet we believe it to be true. How does the horror of the cross show who Jesus really is? How do our own struggles and suffering show who we really are? Don’t skip ahead too quickly to Easter. There is something for us right here in this hard and Holy Week.

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This morning’s worship is the last Sunday of Lent before what we call Holy Week. As we journey through the Gospel of John, we have really slowed our pace. It is uncomfortable and even excruciating at times to linger on all these details of Jesus’ journey to the cross, but we believe that in His struggles, we find guidance and solidarity for our own. So as Jesus continues to stand trial this morning before Pilate, perhaps we can ask what we do when we feel put on trial; put to the test; questioned about the core of who we claim to be? Is our response fight or flight or something else entirely? What might it look like to truly surrender to God in these struggles?

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Jesus is the truth about God. Perhaps, it has happened throughout history. But in the world of 2022 and the years leading up to now, it seems as if no two people can concur with what is truth and what is not truth.  It’s confusing and exhausting. So, why is it important to ask the question, “What is truth?”