I won’t name all 33 on the list I read but here are a few: opening your first paycheque, bearing witness to a turning point in history, driving alone for the first time, reveling in a great book, having an adult conversation with your parents, enjoying a great meal, visiting hallowed ground, doing something by yourself, doing something spontaneous, witnessing the birth of your child, accomplishing something you didn’t think you could, attending an event of your dreams, a family vacation, watching your parents interact with your children, celebrating anniversaries, giving to others, completing your last day of work. The 33rd moment was about appreciating this moment right now.
Life is filled with events and occasions that can slip by hardly appreciated, honoured or witnessed. There are many great highs that when we give them a place in our mind’s attention they inform, shape and form us. What would be on your list of 33 great moments?
It was interesting to me that of the 33 there was also this one: experiencing disappointment. Disappointment is not usually on the bucket list for many of us. Disappointment speaks a little bit to failure or not quite making it or regret or needing to repent. It speaks to not living up to our potential. If we take this a little further, it also says that life is not filled with only great highs but also moments where things did not go as planned or hoped or expected or wanted. In fact disappointments shape us and form us just as much as those 32 great moments. But of course it depends on how we respond to them and face them.
How do we respond when our place of employment tells us we are no longer needed? How do we respond when we hear that our best was not quite good enough? How do we respond when someone close to us betrays our trust? How do we respond when our child disappoints us or we disappoint our child? How do we respond when a friend confronts our actions and we do not want to hear it? How do we respond when something we know is wrong is taking place right in front of us but we are not sure we want to get involved? How do we respond when someone we love tells us they do not love us anymore? How do we respond when it feels like the entire world has turned against us and we have no idea where to turn?
Today is a strange day in the Christian Church. Today with Christians all across the globe, we join in the celebrations of Jesus entering into Jerusalem. We join the crowds in the shouts of Hosanna! We are there with them as they hail him like a conquering hero, a great leader, a star. We whistle and cheer and clap. But the emotions quickly change today don’t they? I have often wondered why we add so much to this day. Do we need to move so hastily from the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem to the crucifixion of Jesus at Golgotha? Should we simply only hear the Palm Sunday part and not the Passion part? But as I thought about this more I realized that this journey we take today is really the journey of life. We do not stay at great highs. We move from peaks to valleys. We move from great moments to dissatisfactions. Life is a roller coaster much more than a plateau. Life is filled with hills and plains, ascents and descents, troubles and calms, ebbs and flows. And that is what this day describes as well. We move from the hosannas to the cries of crucify. We move from great joy to horrific torture. We move from a great high to an incredible low. Our lives know this. We have experienced those 33 Moments in Life that are important. We have also faced those major disappointments, loss, betrayal, rejection, pain, sorrow.
This day, this Palm Sunday teaches us about our own lives if we can avoid it being simply a spectacle where we observe and watch the events unfold for Jesus but instead enter our own lives within it. We see that this is not just the walk of Jesus but also the walk that all of us know one way or another. It is the journey toward adulthood and finally growing up to see and know that life is not simple and uncomplicated but demands our all. There will be dark and painful places for each of us and Christ’s journey reminds us of this. There will be wonderful and fabulous moments but also great disappointments and even dark and difficult times. For we know those places where grief and sadness, doubt and despair, darkness and dread are felt and to be honest this is where we discover who we really are.
And part of what we need to ask ourselves on this day is where God known to us in those high points of life? But also where is God known to us when all feels to be closing in on us? Where is God on our journey? Leading us? Guiding us? Holding us? Loving us? Or does it feel much more that God has walked away and left us on our own?
Jesus knew all of these emotions and pains. He died a tortuous death but his cry from the cross is clearly from the same deepest and darkest place that any of us have known: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
Now we could just leave it there. Leave it in that dark and foreboding place; lost and forsaken, with God billions of miles away uncaring of our pain and despair. But our story as I said earlier is a roller coaster not a plateau; it is filled with hills and valleys. Our story does not end with the darkness and death winning out. Our story today ended with words that are vital to us to hear on this day. We need them held before us and reflected in who we are. The final words of the passion were these: Truly this man was God’s Son! Truly God was known here. Truly God is with us. Truly the darkness does not destroy our light. Truly God’s love is upon us. Truly we are richly blessed. Truly there will be more moments in life that we can add to our list of 33.
May we carry that hope with us through this week and let it rest in our heart and soul all our days knowing that the walk of Christ is our linked directly to our own walk each and every day.