Palm Sunday is such an interesting exercise in faith. Simultaneously it plays into our deepest expectations and confounds them. This isn’t a new phenomenon. It was woven into the story of the very first Palm Sunday. Jesus plays into the disciples’ most entrenched expectations as to who the Messiah was to be. Jesus also confounds these expectations. He assumes authority. He gives up power. This exercise isn’t about twisting the disciples into spiritual knots.  Rather, it is Jesus’ effort to loosen their grip on the past, so that they might be prepared for what would come next for them. He is leading them into their next faithful step as his disciples, as his partners.

Despite the generations of witness about the nature of God and the understanding of Jesus’ messiahship, the Holy Spirit reveals new dimension of this grace and work in each new generation. With every challenge to the human community, there are new things to learn about our faith response to the demands that emerge from it. The pandemic has certainly been such a challenge. On this Palm Sunday, a natural time to be open to how Christ will lead us, we have an opportunity to reflect on where we are as individuals and as a faith community. Through this reflection, we can discern new and deeper understanding of how and where we are being called to take our next faithful step.