Crucify Him

And so it begins … the beginning of Holy Week.

It always strikes me how one day (Palm Sunday) the people welcome Jesus into the city not just with wide open arms, but to joyful and hopeful shouts of ‘Hosannah’ (which is a cry of praise meaning ‘save us’) and waving and laying a path of palm branches. What a welcome!

Then a few short days later this is replaced with cries from those same people of ‘crucify Him’.

I find it hard to believe their hearts could change so drastically in such a short time! Yet do we not also do the same thing?!

One moment our hearts are burning for Jesus and we are promising Him our all, welcoming Him as our Saviour and full of praise and the Holy Spirit, and then something happens…. Maybe it’s as simple as having a bad day or being too tired, maybe something truly traumatic happens to us, or maybe we just really want to do that thing we know we shouldn’t or maybe we have an attachment that we just aren’t willing to give up, and suddenly, our hearts too turn from Jesus. We no longer welcome Him, but instead see Him as a barrier to that thing we what we want to do or can’t give up, or as someone who could have prevented us from experiencing that traumatic event but didn’t, or maybe our tiredness just seems more important to us in the moment. Whatever it is, we want to silence His voice too…

What I find beautiful and what gives me great hope, is that Jesus isn’t surprised when we do this, and it doesn’t change how much He loves us. Even from the cross He was praying for those who crucified Him. I know if I only return to Him truly repentant in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, He forgives me too!