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| *Photo credit: C. Skerritt. Walk through the Scottish Highlands 2025 |
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Journey Through Holy Week
Welcome: Welcome dear community as we gather on this Holy Week evening to consider our Lenten journey to Easter.
Opening Prayer: This past Palm Sunday we probably heard the word hosanna. We tend to associate it with joy and a celebrating crowd waving palm branches as Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem. Hosanna actually means “save us” and the crowds along that parade route, so long ago, were crying out for Jesus to save them.
They knew as we know, the world is in “ashes of a mess.”
We are almost at the end of our Lenten journey. Have we discovered the God of abundance, the grace of transformation, the stripping away of old attachments in and around us?
Where has time in our Lenten desert shown us, we are already saved?
Salvation is not from sin, it is often from ego related wounds that cause us to wound others. Salvation is the grace of coming a little closer to wholeness.
Opening Song: Extravagant Love--The Many
https://youtu.be/C931lJxY_-g?si=X3KI3telVGy8Y2-c
(Read reflectively)
Reading : A reading from Rev. Hank Galganowicz (adapted by Dennis M)
The language and tone of Lent address the ego, known in traditional language as our ‘sinful nature.’ According to traditional Christian theology, Jesus died to ‘save’ us from our inherently depraved nature inherited from Adam & Eve, because we can’t do it for ourselves. For the sake of biblical and religious literacy, we need to acknowledge a disclaimer.
The extended gospel read on Palm Sunday, is called the Passion Narrative It is the mythological story of the suffering, or passion, of Jesus. It is half of the core story of Christian faith, the other half being the Resurrection. The two parts of this story are our foundational myth. Like most foundational myths, most of the content is not literally true. The myth and the theology do not come from Jesus himself; they are made up about him after the fact. It doesn’t mean it isn’t true on mythological levels, just not literally. What’s foundational is the myth, not the event.
The cross was not God’s idea. God is love; love does not kill, love does not condemn.
God does not demand the death of his beloved son. God does not require blood as payment for love. That is the ego’s deluded craziness; not God’s idea, but ours.
Jesus did not have to die as part of some cosmic theological plan. He didn’t die ‘for’ us, nor on ‘our behalf,’ to save us from God’s supposed anger or wrath. We didn’t need to be saved from anything, because we didn’t do anything, and God wasn’t angry with us.
Jesus didn’t have to die; it’s more like he chose to. Not that he liked the idea of dying, not that he preferred to. The normal reflex responses in his circumstances are to fight or flee, to save life and limb. He did neither. Instead, he bravely faced his suffering and death – stood in the middle of it – trusting in the love of God to see him through.
The point is not to suffer. God does not want us to suffer more. We are not made holier by feeling sentimentally guilty over Jesus’ death. The point is not to suffer: the point is to love…. which is what he died for. What he did was show us what we can do. That we’re capable of doing what he did …. because… we are like him.
The recurring question is, are we following the Spirit or ego?
Keeping our hearts open doesn’t mean we won’t die, figuratively and literally. It doesn’t mean we won’t hurt. Our egos will die; we will have to surrender them. But, like Jesus, in the midst of Gethsemane and our crosses – who trusted that nothing could separate him from the love of God, and that the loving presence of God enfolded and embraced him – we can follow his example and be taken through our suffering and death to another side. Suffering and dying, at least of our egos, may be a gateway to breaking us open – in order to love.
The most important part of the Christian story is not the Cross, but Easter; not death, but new life. But you can’t get to new life without going through the death. You can’t end-run the process. That’s just the way it is. That’s the truth of the foundational myth.
This is the inspirational message from Rev. Hank Galganowicz and we affirm it by saying, Amen.
Moments of silence
Petitions
(Read reflectively)
The Prayer of Jesus: (A translation from the original Aramaic by Neil Douglas-Klotz)
O Breathing Source of Life,
Your name shines everywhere! Hollow out a space to plant your presence here. Come, really come, and guide us to the good place where your vision is fulfilled.
May your delight be fulfilled in each life, as it is in the shining realm of your full Presence.
Illuminate our circle of life with the wisdom and nurturing we need now, for body, mind and spirit. Empower us to stop crossing the boundaries of others; allow us to let go of the tangled threads of others’ faults we hold in our hands; release the knots of sin in our lives. Help us to be neither too outer nor too inner, lest we bear unripe or rotten fruit.
For to you belongs the enlightened vision, the empowering energy, and the song that brings all together in harmony, from gathering to gathering.
This is the ground of being from which my actions will come. Amen
Closing prayer: As we end our time together this evening, may knowing we are from Love, for love and rooted in the love of God, fill us with the courage on our journey to say hallelujah -even when we would prefer to be crying out hosanna.
Closing Song: Hidden Hallelujah by Christopher Grundy
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