MAY I COME IN?

Last year's post for Palm Sunday still holds a lot of messages for me personally, so I'm posting it for my own benefit. I hope that it may be a blessing for you as well. Let's be sure to pray for one another during this holiest of weeks.

 Lift up your heads, eternal gates, let him enter the king of glory! (Ps. 24)

Tomorrow’s Palm Sunday celebration, when the church remembers and reenacts Jesus’s entrance into the holy city of Jerusalem, centers our attention on Jerusalem, where all of the action of Holy Week and Easter comes to a head.

Early this morning I started thinking about Jesus' entering the gate, not of the holy city, Jerusalem, but of my heart. I know that sometimes my heart is like a walled city with all its gates securely closed. But Jesus wants desperately to enter my heart and dwell there. Fortunately, our loving Savior has lots of different ways of getting past my defenses. And He uses them all the time.

Sometimes, for example, while I´m praying, or maybe chanting a psalm with my brothers, He will come and ask me directly, “May I please come in?“ And that’s a beautiful experience, to consciously welcome the Lord into my heart in prayer.

Lift up your heads, eternal gates, let him enter the king of glory!

At other times He approaches the gate in the guise of someone who can use my help, whether that's simply a smile or a good word, or something that requires me to go out of my way for that person. If I have the grace to see that this is Jesus asking to enter my heart, then I can empathize with this person and let him or her past the gates of my heart.

Lift up your heads, eternal gates, let him enter the king of glory!

Much of the time, however, He slips in without drawing attention to Himself, and we recognize His presence only after He's already inside the fortified city. We're all well acquainted with the countless ways He does this. Maybe it’s through the kind action of a brother or sister, or the beauty of a sunset, or the radiance of a little child’s face. Recently I felt tremendous joy while listening to the beautiful voice of one of our students singing. And I quickly realized that I was experiencing the loving presence of Jesus.

Lift up your heads, eternal gates, let him enter the king of glory!

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There are two requirements, though, if I expect Jesus to slip into my heart like that. First I cannot be living blindfolded, with my heart safely secured against the world, with the gates locked. I have to at least be watching at the gate.

Lift up your heads, eternal gates, let him enter the king of glory!

Second, I need to be looking for the presence of Jesus all the time. It's easy enough to see Him in the beautiful and joyful experiences that are part of my life. But what about those painful, ugly experiences
of suffering and evil and death that are also part of my life? How can I see these as signs of Christ's presence? The answer liues in precisely what we are about to celebrate during Holy week: the Paschal mystery.

My Easter faith assures me that out of defeat comes victory, out of sadness comes joy, and out of death comes eternal life. This belief is what lets me recognize the presence of the Lord in my life in all sorts of people, places, and things. as a Christian I expect to find Jesus in the midst of every negative experience. In other words, if I am experiencing Good Friday in my life today, then, the Great News is that Easter Sunday is coming!

So, let us go forth to welcome the king of glory into our lives, singing “Hosanna to the son of David!“

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

Lift up your heads, eternal gates, let him enter the king of glory!