St. John’s Park Slope

The Resurrection doesn’t erase Peter’s past.

It transforms it.

The place of his greatest shame becomes the place of his greatest calling…

This morning’s Gospel picks up where Easter left off.

Mary Magdalene: “I have seen the Lord.”

But they don’t respond with joy. They lock the doors.

They’re afraid—of the authorities, yes. But maybe also of what Mary’s words could mean.

To the Romans, Jesus was an insurrectionist.

To the religious leaders, a blasphemer.

To the disciples, he had been everything—and they had failed him…

"The Resurrection gives birth to hope—a living hope—resilient enough to withstand the pull of nihilism, apathy, and despair. The kind of hopelessness that creeps in when we contemplate oblivion—when we fear that nothing means anything at all.

Our God has acted—and he promises to act again. He will bring evil, suffering, and loss to an end, once and for all. And this is the greatest hope..."

In the Passion accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we encounter Jesus as profoundly human—a suffering servant burdened by grief and despair. We see his agony, his tears, his desperate plea as he faces betrayal and abandonment. And we mourn for him—not only for what he suffered, but because we know he endured it all for us.

Yet when we turn to John’s account, sorrow doesn’t take center stage. Instead, Christ’s divine majesty shines through…

Jesus didn’t just give us a model of service. He stooped to wash the feet of sinners—feet that would flee in fear, feet that would deny him by a charcoal fire, feet that would falter and doubt.

He washed them all.

And he washes us still.

Palm Sunday doesn’t just tell us what happened to Jesus. It tells us the truth about ourselves.

And yet—thank God—it doesn’t stop there.

The service doesn’t just reveal our complicity in the world’s brokenness. It shows how far God will go to meet us in it.

Mary’s extravagant love foreshadowed Christ’s—poured out on the Cross, overcoming the stench of death just as her perfume erased the odor of Lazarus’ tomb…

The good news of the gospel is that Christ died for the ungodly—not just for the obviously self-destructive but also for the subtly sanctimonious. The challenge for older-brother types like me is this: will we cling to our self-righteousness like a weapon, or will we lower our defenses, unclench our fists, and step into the celebration?

If you catch yourself, like the disciples, believing you’re better than others, repent — Jesus died for Pharisees too.

And if you’re weary, burdened by suffering, or crushed under the weight of your own mistakes, know this: you are not abandoned. Christ dwells with us, even in the wreckage of our fallen towers…

If Herod is a fox—scheming, grasping, ruling by fear—then Jesus is a mother hen, gathering, shielding, laying down his life in love. One takes life; the other gives it. And the best part? This mother hen spreads her wings not just for the chicks, but for the foxes too. For Herod. For us…