Not an ordinary day
Palm Sunday can be tricky to put together. Good Friday tends to be an easier service. So what happens when you add them together and call today Palm/Passion Sunday? Easier? Harder? Neither, really, just different.
The move to Palm Sunday being combined with Good Friday came about when it became obvious that Good Friday service attendance was a difficulty for quite a few people. The days of everything shutting down for Good Friday are behind us; it might be lamentable, but it is the reality in which we live.
The biggest difficulty is trying to combine the two without becoming unbalanced. I’m not prepared to say I get it right every year or even this year, but I do my best. This year, I seemed to be drawn to the notion of this Sunday not being an ordinary day, not being an ordinary Sunday. But then, after I had settled on the sermon title, I realized it is an ordinary day. Every day holds triumph and tragedy . . . at least to some degree. So that’s what the sermon is about. How ordinary and not-ordinary today, Palm/Passion Sunday, is but so is every day.
Give the sermon a listen and let me know what you think as you are able and inclined.
Blessings,
