Easter is Coming

   We’ve been waiting. For those of us who have been traveling on this Lenten Journey toward Easter weekend, anticipation has been rising as it draws closer. We believe Easter is a weekend so significant that we dare not approach it unprepared. However, I’m sort of ready for it finally to arrive. The forty days of wait is so long. That is not to say that I’m completely ready to take in the majesty of hearing the words, “the tomb is empty” or to try and keep pace with those sprinting disciples who leave the garden and run out to tell the world.  I’m just tired of waiting.
   As I read through the Gospel accounts of Jesus as he approaches Jerusalem, I cannot help but want to get to the end of the story. How many times will he tell those disciples how it all turns out? Yet they never hear him. They continue on believing that their way of doing things – which would have had Jesus force himself on people – all the while Jesus is telling them that it will actually be the people who force their way on him. He will be rejected, wrongly accused, brutally treated, and finally killed. He puts it as plain as he can to them, but nevertheless, they are oblivious.
   I’m ready for Easter to finally arrive in the biblical story, so the disciples can see all that God is doing. I want them – like myself – to be made aware of how marvelous is God’s grace, and how amazing is God’s love. But for now, we’ll join Jesus and those disciples on the Mount of Olives and join in with the singing and palm-waving, thinking that the rest is easy. It was not easy for Jesus, and will probably not be for us, but we’ll have to wait some more to learn exactly what all of that means.
   Grace and Peace, Scott