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One of the greatest challenges of Holy Week is letting go of what we want salvation to be and allowing ourselves to be open to what it is. Once, in a conversation about favorite moments of Holy Week, a person shared the thought that Easter is supposed to help us not to be afraid of death. Someone else responded, “I’m not afraid of death. It’s the dying part that I don’t like.”

That’s true for most of us. It’s the dying that we’re afraid of. And Holy Week has a lot of dying. Remembering the betrayal, the false accusations and the crucifixion causes us to tremble. But the dying actually begins as we enter the week with shouts of “Hosanna” and palm branches in our hands.

Dying well takes honesty. How honest are we prepared to be? Are we prepared to be honest with the emotions we feel this week? The discomfort and uncertainty we feel with the story of the crucifixion? Our sense of being overwhelmed (or maybe even underwhelmed) by the story that’s been told so many times? The fact that Jesus isn’t the king we’re expecting, and sometimes… we don’t like that?

This message is excerpted from “The meaning of ‘Hosanna!’” by Julia Seymour in the March/April 2022 Gather magazine. Today is Palm/Passion Sunday. Today we commemorate Hans Nielsen Hague, renewer of the church, 1824.