For the last five weeks we’ve been focusing on the practice of laying down our burdens. In order to lay a burden down we need to pay attention to it, understand our relationship to it, figure out why we are still holding on and how it’s feeding us, and then figure out if we’re ready to let it go, and then … let it go.
This Sunday is Palm Sunday – the day when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, when “crowds” gather, pull branches off the trees and lay them on the road shouting “Hosanna in the highest!” It also marks the beginning of the last week of Jesus’ life. So … a happy and sad day.
We will have some palms to lay down this Sunday but they are not regular palms. These palms have our burdens written on them: temptation, fear, control, ego and anxiety. During the service there will be a time to consciously decide to lay down these burdens in a definite way.
And that got me thinking … when we lay them down, what do we think is going to happen? If we lay them down so that Jesus can pass over them and “take them up” so to speak, what are we expecting? To be vulnerable enough to trust our burdens to Jesus suggests faith, confidence, reliance, dependence, expectation and/or hope. Let’s explore how that changes us and our relationship with God.
See you Sunday,
Julie.