We celebrate Palm Sunday as the beginning of Holy Week. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the people celebrate because they see Him as their soon-to-be triumphant conqueror of the empire they were living under. There are many groups of people who would have had different perspectives of this event, depending on their age and status in that society, but the overall mood portrayed is celebration.

Because we know the full story of Holy Week, it's easy to quickly push through Palm Sunday to get to the next week, the grand finale of the season, so to speak. But if you immerse yourself in this story, and pause at every chapter, there is much to observe and process. We may need to put ourselves in someone else's perspective in order to travel through each chapter with thoughtfulness.

To view this week through the eyes of a child is to experience it with awe, then grief, then great joy. An anticipated king arriving in the city, received by a parade of hopeful people, that king's betrayal by one of his own closest friends to briefly benefit financially, the trial and execution of the king because of his words of hope and justice for the people under the thumb of empire, and then the final plot twist, when the king reappears after rising from the grave. One can only view this story with wonder, grief, and then joy if perceiving it as a child would. The weight of understanding more than you may be expected to, but not grasping the fullness of the context at first.

Don't skip straight to Easter. For Good Friday is soon upon us. Slow down, take in every chapter.

ReNew Community Worship Service

Speaker: Tony Vis

Scripture: Matthew 21:1-17

https://my.bible.com/events/48874823