Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today is jarring. Palm Sunday takes that triumphal procession and then moves us right through the experience of the disciples.

Singing, laughing, and celebrating they made their way to Jerusalem. They would never be the same.

Neither can we.

Or, I suppose, we can. We can come to this week like we might any other. We can let the busyness, hobbies, or habits of our lives keep us away. We can find excuses about long days, hard pews, or the like.

We can all find a thousand reasons not to let our hearts, lives, or schedules be changed.

Sometimes I hear people talk about privilege. It’s always about how one group has privilege and misuses it. It’s usually about politics or culture or media or the like.

Yet when I think of misused privilege, I have to think of my faith life first, I think. We have this enormous privilege as Christians in this country to gather, pray, sing, and more together. Yet we so often find reasons not to exercise it.

When I talk with Christians from other places like China or parts of the Middle East, I am quickly reminded of the awesome privilege we have to be able to worship without fear.

The thing I fear now is the I will all too soon take it for granted again. The pandemic shook loose our sense of the orderly and the normal — let’s ensure that the normal we create ahead of us is grounded in gratitude for the incredible privilege it is to be able to encounter Christ in community.

That’s an encounter from which we will never be the same. If we will let it.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert