Holy Week

Palm Sunday is when we explain again

the un-Christ-like nature of the Christ

and everybody thinks how dumb the Jews were

to not get it, and we don’t get it again.

The Christ is not the Christ! Not then, not now!

How hard is that?

The Messiah we wait for is not coming! Never was, never will!

That’s the message of Palm Sunday and Good Friday.

But we won’t have it, and come up with Easter Morning

which allows us to settle back into looking for the Christ

we’ve always looked for

to come rescue us, set things right, and make life grand.

But the Messiah we wait for is not coming!

Easter Morning is about the unassailability

of the Christ—the Messiah—who IS,

not about the eternal reliability

of who we want the Christ—the Messiah—to be.

Sit with this: The Christ is not the Christ. Not then, not now.

Who then is the Christ?

The stone the builders reject, of course.

And who is the most unlikely of the lot, if not you? Me?

If not ourselves?

We will have none of it.

But if the Christ can be born of a virgin in a manger,

the Christ can be born in you and me—

if we will but get out of the way

and bring forth what is within, waiting

well past the delivery date.

Getting out of the way

means not-knowing what we think we know.

It means radical openness to other possibilities.

Unheard of possibilities.

Revolutionary, ridiculous possibilities.

It all comes back to you and me.

When we get out of the way,

there we are.

Bringing forth what is within

means listening to the inner voices—

all of them—

until we hear something

that strikes a cord,

that resonates with something,

that moves us toward it

as it moves toward us

and calls for a response

that validates the entire experience,

affirms it,

expresses it,

incarnates it,

and brings it forth

into our lives,

into the world.

And, like that,

we are the Christ,

making visible the invisible,

declaring, “Thy will, not mine, be done,”

revealing in a thousand ways

“The Father and I are one,”

saving the world

again and again.

What a miracle!

Who would believe it?

There you are.

The Gospel plain and simple.