It's Palm Sunday, the last Sunday of Lent and the beginning of the most important week in the Christian year: Holy Week. Ever since I was very young, I have been intrigued with this time of year. The realization of what Jesus did--what Jesus endured--during those days on earth so long ago has always gripped me emotionally, ever since I can remember. My parents, Sunday School teachers, counselors, pastors--none of them candy coated the events of Jesus' passion and death, or shielded me from the blood, brutality, and horror of his suffering. The reality of the beatings, the scourging, and the crucifixion were always starkly real to me, so even as a child I felt the weight of all that Jesus went through for me, and for the whole world. Of course, since living in Israel (just five blocks away from where many of the events of Holy Week took place!) the power and meaning and depth of all of this is even more profoundly rich and significant for me. It's "incarnational!" Spirit made flesh. Words on a page made three dimensional. Ideas made alive. Sunday School teaching made real. History made concrete. The "incarnation!" What an amazing and powerful theological reality and truth! No other religion has such a profound and engaging claim. This is Jesus! The very Son of God who comes to us, not waiting far away in the distance for us to try and make our way to Him! The Creator of the universe riding a donkey down a hilly slope and into an ancient city, ultimately on His way to the most painful death imaginable. It's unfathomable; irrational; nonsensical. Yet for we who know Jesus, it is powerfully true!

I'm glad I was exposed to all the harsh and stark realities of Holy Week from the time I was a very small child. I think this honesty and bluntness on the part of the adults who loved me and raised me in faith helped make me responsible early on to seek out and wrestle with my relationship with God. I was never given a nice neatly organized logical faith with every "i" dotted and "t" crossed. I'm glad, because you only need to look at the bloody, messy gore of Holy Week to see that our relationship with God is meant to be gritty and scruffy, un-neat and unorganized. If we are truly going to be engaged with the world God so loved, our faith is not going to have everything neatly in place and nicely appointed. We will smack up against the injustice, the hurt, the pain, and the chaos that is everywhere in this world God so loved and, from hearts and lives committed to the Lord, cry out "WHY?" Even the best biblical and theological answers do not adequately explain and "make alright" the overwhelming circumstances and suffering that cover the world. They are an affront to the conditions and aching realities that so many face around the world.

But then, there is Jesus, hanging on a cross. Beaten, bruised, and bloodied beyond recognition. There is God, incarnated in the bloody, messy gore of Holy Week. I believe that this is an answer that refugees in Darfur, AIDS patients in India, victims of terrorists in Iraq, and mothers who have lost children because of contaminated drinking water can grasp, and even understand. This is real! This is "God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son..." This is a God I believe our culture is crying out for. Do you know Him? Is He your Lord and Savior? Wouldn't you love to get to know Him, who so loves this world?

Beginning today and throughout this Holy Week, I will be posting daily "Visual Devotions" on the Hilmar Covenant Church website. I hope that my pictures can be a way for you to connect better with the amazing realities of Holy Week. Besides the photos of the places where the events of this week occurred, I will be listing relevant readings from the Bible for each day, from now through Easter. I hope you enjoy this different approach to your daily devotional time during this very meaningful week, and that whatever I share helps take you more deeply into your relationship with the Lord.

Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo.