Passiontide, Passion Sunday to Resurrection

Last Sunday was the fifth Sunday of Lent, traditionally referred to as Passion Sunday; and next Sunday is the sixth Sunday of Lent, commonly called Palm Sunday. I understand that many changes have occurred to the liturgical calendar surrounding these last two Sunday’s in Lent, but regardless of what they are called, they have always been the milemarkers in that sub-section of Lent referred to as Passiontide. Denominations mark these two weeks in many ways, some change parts of their liturgy excluding certain prayers, others cover crosses and statues with purple, certainly the content and theme of the daily scripture readings concentrate on the suffering and death of Jesus. These practices are intended to remind us that in the ministry of Jesus there was a turning of a corner and this is similarly reflected in our Lenten observance.

You see that corner within the gospels. It is clearly reflected in Jesus’ change in emphasis in Matthew 16:21, “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things by the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed….” We can see it in His prayer in John 12:27-28, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Even the gospel reading from this past Sunday alludes to it in Luke 20:19, “And the scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him from that very hour…” This portion of Lent reminds me that there remains a big difference between choosing and living. Maybe those are not the best words to describe what I mean, so let me use part of an old worship refrain instead. "I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.” Choosing is easy, naming ourselves followers of Christ is not that challenging; but then He turns the corner and all that lays immediately ahead is rejection and the cross and suddenly the reality of our choice become evident. Christ bids us pick up our cross and follow, and once we truly do that, there is no turning back. It’s what Paul meant in the epistle reading in Philippians 3, “Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, so that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded.” I don’t know how your Lent has been thus far, but I know that last Sunday we all turned that corner I have described above and that it is time to forget what lays behind in the last five weeks and press on now towards the goal of God’s high calling of us in Jesus Christ, allowing it to be made real by the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God and sealed by the sending of the Holy Spirit. We’ve all made the choice a long time ago to follow Jesus, it’s just time to start living in the reality of it each day.