Joining the Procession of Love

Beloved in Christ,

On Palm Sunday, two processions entered the holy city of Jerusalem. From the west, Pontius Pilate was coming with all the pomp, pageantry, and military might of the world’s most powerful empire. From the east, Jesus and his small band of disciples were making their way down the Mount of Olives from Bethphage and Bethany. The procession from the west represented the way of domination, exploitation, and violent clinging to power. The procession from the east represented the way of radical, liberating, self-giving love. The events we walk through together this week are what happened when those two processions collided on God’s holy mountain, and the Easter we anticipate was confirmation of love’s victory over all the ways we break one another down, and over death itself. This week captures all of the pain we experience in this life—the sadness, the inexplicable grief as someone we love dies, the sickness that afflicts our bodies and minds, the ways we have been oppressed and the ways we have oppressed others, the harm we have done and the harm done on our behalf—and then heals and sets it free with the unending power of love. The small procession of radical love that at first appeared to be utterly crushed by the forces of empire became, in this week, the most powerful force for change in the world. 

The question posed to us in Holy Week is: which procession are you going to join your life to? Are you going to join the empire’s procession of violence, hatred, division, and exploitation, or are you going to join God’s liberating, world-changing procession of love? 

It has been a crushing year in so many ways, and the forces of death, sin, and darkness seem so very much ascendant. But make no mistake, despite the very worst the world can throw at us, despite the worst that each of us has done, despite the worst way that we have been knocked down in these months, love comes again. Death has died. We are free. And come what may, we will join together in four days' time as one church in ninety-five locations, to once again shout our defiant alleluias into the darkness. 

I love each and every one of you, and am so immeasurably grateful to be walking in this procession with you. 

Blessed Holy Week,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya
X Bishop
Episcopal Church in MN