I Live Like Hell Is Empty

It. Is. Finished.

I had a lot I wanted to say for this Holy Week. It’s the first I’ve spent as a Sunday school teacher, and the first one of our kids has been aware enough to notice that something is off about Palm Sunday. I like to think we all reach that point as children when we realize that there’s a sense of foreboding woven into it.

So, I got to explain that to a five-year-old. It was delightful. He gets the concept.

Maybe it’s the fact that everyone on the worship team — pastors, elders, choir and choir directors, men and women of the church who do the set up for the feast — are obviously working overtime to prepare for something, but not like they were at Christmas time. Maybe it's the increasing sense of darkness falling as we repeatedly gather to worship in the evening, but not like it was at Christmastime. Maybe it’s the ten million communion sacraments we share in one short week… But not like it was at Christmastime.

We prepare. We gather. We share a meal by night. We did all of this a short while ago, but there was joy and anticipation in the air. Excitement and cheer, because it was advent and soon, we would be together with family we hadn’t seen in a while. There would be feasting, and colorful decorations, and brilliant lights glowing in the cold night to fill us with hope and remind us that the…