SPEAKER_00: Today begins the most important week of our lives, not just in the church calendar, not just symbolically, but personally.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have just heard in the Passion that it that this is not just something that is happening to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that is happening inside of us.
SPEAKER_00: We began at the beginning of Mass at the doors of the church with our palms in our hands shouting Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.
SPEAKER_00: And then just minutes later we stood here saying, Crucify Him, let him be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: And no one flinched.
SPEAKER_00: That's the uncomfortable truth of Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't just listen to the passion, we participated in it.
SPEAKER_00: Because the same heart that praises God on Sunday can ignore him on Monday.
SPEAKER_00: The same voice that says, Lord, I love you, can choose to sin on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00: The same soul that wants him close can push him away when it costs something.
SPEAKER_00: So don't distance yourself from the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: You are the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: And yet this is where it gets dangerous in the best way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows that.
SPEAKER_00: He sees the instability, he sees the inconsistencies, he sees the moments where we mean it, and in those moments when we don't.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes anyway.
SPEAKER_00: And he rides into Jerusalem knowing the same people shouting Hosanna will not be there on Friday.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't turn around.
SPEAKER_00: He keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we're faithful, but because he is.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we're strong, but because his love is strong.
SPEAKER_00: This week is not about how much you love God.
SPEAKER_00: This week is about how much God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: And if you miss that, you miss everything.
SPEAKER_00: Because the cross is not an accident.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a tragedy, it is a decision, a deliberate, intentional, chosen, unwavering act of love.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not caught in the passion.
SPEAKER_00: He walks right into it.
SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
SPEAKER_00: Today's Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine if you knew that by this Friday you would be betrayed, you would be abandoned, you would be tortured, you would be nailed to a cross.
SPEAKER_00: You know every detail, you know every wound, you know the exact moment your life will be taken from you, and still you get up.
SPEAKER_00: You walk forward.
SPEAKER_00: You don't run, you don't hide, you don't delay.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what Jesus is doing.
SPEAKER_00: He rides into Jerusalem with full knowledge of the cross for you.
SPEAKER_00: Not for a crowd, not for humanity in the abstract, but for you.
SPEAKER_00: Your sins, your struggles, the parts of your life you don't like to talk about, the things that are that you're tired of carrying, the sins that you keep hidden.
SPEAKER_00: He sees all of it.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'm not walking away from you.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the question that matters this week.
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to walk with him?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to sit on the sidelines?
SPEAKER_00: Not in theory, not emotionally for a moment, but concretely.
SPEAKER_00: Because Holy Week is not something you watch.
SPEAKER_00: It's something you enter into.
SPEAKER_00: I urge you to come on Holy Thursday, not just to see the washing of the feet, to hear about the Eucharist, where he gives himself to us.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, Good Friday.
SPEAKER_00: Don't avoid the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Stand right in front of it.
SPEAKER_00: Come to the vigil, not just celebrate Easter experience, but how we see the darkness breaking into the light.
SPEAKER_00: Or the light breaking into the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let this be just another Palm Sunday where you show up, you receive your palms, and then disappear until Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you walk away now, you'll miss the greatest act of love the world has ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe, just maybe, that's why some hearts never change.
SPEAKER_00: So take one line with you this week.
SPEAKER_00: Just one line.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't turn back.
SPEAKER_00: Not when it got painful, not when it got humiliating, not when it cost him everything.
SPEAKER_00: He never turned back.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't turn back.
SPEAKER_00: So my brothers and sisters, the question for us this Sunday will we turn back?
SPEAKER_00: Or will we we we will we be there with him every step of the way?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.