Dear Beloved of Trinity Church,
This Sunday, we begin our Holy Week journey.
We lift our palm branches high, waving and crying out,
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest.”
For a brief moment, we try to place ourselves among the crowd some two thousand years ago—
spirits lifted, hearts full of hope and expectation.
At last, things are turning.
At last, things will be made right.
This must be the beginning—
the long-awaited procession into a kingdom of righteousness and justice.
And yet… how quickly things turn.
Hopes are dashed.
Dreams are shattered.
Expectations crumble.
Life, as we know, is unpredictable.
In a moment, everything can change.
The world can turn upside down in an instant—
like shifting sands beneath our feet,
like winds that rise without warning,
like floods that overwhelm both land and soul.
How, then, do we steady ourselves?
It is for such a world and time as this that our Lord came.
Christ entered into the very heart of instability—
standing on shifting sands,
facing the howling winds of rage,
and walking through the floodwaters of fear.
Yet always, he remained rooted in love.
In him, we find our anchor.
In him, we find life and hope.
And so we, too—fully human, deeply vulnerable—
are invited to walk this path.
With faith in God’s goodness,
and trust in the enduring love revealed in Christ,
we find our way forward.
Beloved, I invite you into this most sacred journey—
not away from uncertainty,
but through it.
Through the trials and travails of life,
held always by the certainty and constancy
of God’s unchanging love,
as revealed to us
in the life, death, and resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed Holy Week,
Paul+