Our journey with Jesus through the season of Lent has delivered us to Palm Sunday. I am so grateful for your willingness to try new things and to experience God in different ways. During our journey we worshipped with our senses: touch, taste, sound, sight, and smell. Together we have deepened our relationship with God and each other and in so doing, Christ has been praised.

And so now, we stand outside the gates of Jerusalem, as Jesus approaches humbly on a donkey. It is one of the most surreal stories of our faith as a cheering crowd greets Jesus with a parade of palm branches waving, Hosannas shouted, and cloaked thrown before his path.

The stimulation had to be intense. It was sensory overload, and everything was firing at once. The feel of palm branches clutched in hand and the taste of dirt being kicked up as the mob ran behind, along and before this parade of one. The odor of a sweaty crowd packed along the road together. The shouts of Hosanna ringing in the ears, all get a view of the one being herald as the Messiah.

Nothing had ever happened like this before. A haze of disdain and righteous anger hung in the air as those the religious zealots and political elite fought to disguise their fear and maintain their power. In the days ahead tensions will soon erupt and the cheers will turn to curses, devotion for Jesus will evolve into denial, and faithful hearts will be broken.

But for now, we too join with praise and adoration. Christ has come! Salvation will be ours! Hosanna in the highest.