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I’ve known a few people over the years who profess to follow Jesus’ example of siding with the poor, but then it becomes evident that they are matching what they do and say with the opinions of the group they are with in any moment.
Yesterday’s celebration of Palm Sunday got me thinking down this track.
I snapped the pic above at Sacred Heart in Timaru where the magnificently decorated-for-Palm-Sunday basilica was full for Mass with people standing for the reading of the Passion of the Lord during Mass.
It struck me as astonishingly powerful witness that two-thousand years after the events we commemorate this Holy Week, we, on the other side of the world, are gathering to remember – and to seek communion with the one who was crucified.
In desiring this communion we are expressing our need to be with Jesus and with those he gave his life to and for.
Back then in Jerusalem the Palm Sunday crowd were a pretty fickle mob, welcoming Jesus when they thought he would be the earthly king bringing the earthly prosperity they sought but turning on him when he led them to deeper relationship with God through suffering to death and resurrection.
But here we were, in Timaru, siding with Jesus and with those who were the favourites, the intimates, the closest to Jesus – not the powerful but the weak and the meek.
In an age when many Church communities seek to be strong in the world using capitalist measures of money, numbers of followers and earthly success, Christians around the world this week feel shame at how easily we forget those closest to Jesus who leads as a servant.
Send your date and time to add to the list, and just turn up at at one of the advertised gatherings, just one hour, focussing on where we are encountering Christ.
CHRISTCHURCH
TODAY Monday 14 April 10.00am (& every Monday)
Moku cafe, Bush Inn Centre Waimairi Road.
Invitation from Trish
PETONE
Thursday 17 April 10am
at Faith & Co.
313 Jackson St, Petone
Invitation from Kath
Taking sides is a very appropriate title, as I look at the photo and notice the many empty seats. I suspect those empty seats will be repeated in most churches. I constantly pray that God will give me insight that will get my family and friends back to church. Then I realised that God has the greatest intellects in the church working on the problem. If we removed all the immigrants from our parishes, our churches would be dismal places indeed. So, let us thank God for our faithful immigrants as the West abandons its Judeo-Christian roots and tries to replace the foundations of our civilisation with sand and cotton wool.