Palm Sunday coming

Good morning, on this April Showers kind of a day. Our Dog Abby, a Cairn Terrier, like Toto in the Wizard of Oz, needed to go out. She always lunges out the front door to chase birds, or cars or whatever, almost ripping the arm attached to her leash, out of my socket. But today, she lunges out onto the stoop and gets hit with a hard rain and before I can adjust, she is heading back inside. She doesn't like being rained on too much. We have somethings in common after all... That kind of reminds me of almost every camp out I went on as a Scout growing up in Silver Spring. The weekend I need to be able to build a fire from scratch for my First Class rank, it rained for a week prior to the camp out. Everything was soaked. I had to try fire building some other time.

   In talking about Raising the dead, we often feel rained on too, even soaked sometimes, and it's hard to move forward spiritually when you are under such a deluge. We feel like we are dead, what's the use against so much pouring down upon us. But it's in that moment that God can do great work. We have to go through the dead part to get to witness and experience the overwhelming power of the Resurrection from the dead. The rain as nasty and windy as it can be sometimes, cleanses the air, waters the ground and provides what we need to drink and to raise crops for food, and bless us with beautiful flowers. It's in the rain that rebirth comes from.

   With Palm Sunday coming up this week, we look at what Jesus did. He willingly faced the rain, the rejection, the refusal to see God in him, in order to get to the Resurrection. His tragedy became our triumph. God restored us to a fully connected to "God life", because Jesus did what he had to do, to remove the junk that got in our way, the sin we so avidly pursue. Now I see the word sin, and I think of what it originally meant, Missing the Target! I know I miss the target of what God wants for me, too often, for my comfort. But the forgiveness Jesus offered on the cross, punctuated with the forgiveness we experience in the Resurrection allows me to aim at the target and do better in another day.

   Palm Sunday is Jesus coming into town to bring us back to God, what a glorious event. It's too bad it has to rain on his parade. But God intended it for good, that's why we call it Good Friday. So I invite you to go to church and celebrate this coming into town by Jesus and remember it's for our own good!

   Blessings on all of you where ever you are in your pilgrimage. I chose the lantern for the blog to let us know God has a light out for us to follow on our journey. Thanks for stopping by for a moment.  You can share your thoughts with us by adding a comment here.

Pastor Jeff