For Sunday
Sunday of the Passion
Year B
Collect
Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Reading
Reflection
As we progress through Lent, we are reminded that Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. There, he will confront the Temple authorities, they will arrest him, try him, and hand him over to Rome to be tortured and executed. And then, on the third day, he will be raised.
It is both familiar and something we avoid dealing with. That this is the way things would work out.
In Mark 8, when Jesus first tells his followers of this inevitability, Peter famously rejects it. He wants to find a way to keep it from happening. And who wouldn’t?
Jesus. He wouldn’t. And I think that’s the point.
As we now work our way through Holy Week, which isn’t only punctuated by the Passion, but is colored by it, listen to the prophetic voice of Jesus. Because he keeps drawing the disciples to see what is happening. To walk this road with him. Being his disciple means carrying our own cross to Jerusalem.
And maybe literal crucifixion isn’t our fate. But for some disciples it was.
His death is not his end. Nor is his death our end—the movement would continue—and then, on top of that, is the resurrection. The end isn’t even the end!
As many of us face mortality and mourning, desiring hope and understanding, may we gain clarity in the journey—that we all must carry a cross. Not because God wills it, or such a thing is natural to life, but it is the inevitable outcome of human failure. That economics keeps us from family, disease keeps us from community, and responsibilities keep us from engaging.
We carry our cross with Jesus. With the promise that the burden is lighter. And the end isn’t the end. Because God’s grace and love can handle any challenge.