We enter Holy Week through the gate of Palm Sunday. In this message, I explore the power of these biblical stories, not as artifacts of history, but as agents of our spiritual transformation. I map Holy Week as a form of the perennial vision of the soul’s journey. To heal and transform what’s outside us we seek to heal and transform what’s inside us. On this journey the 23rd Psalm is an apt companion.

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. If we were together in the sanctuary, we’d re-enact Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. We’d wave our palm branches and shout our Hosannas; the children would laugh and dance, and we grownups would try to be a little more playful.

It’s different this year, we’re separated from one another, but we’ll still tell the Holy Week stories of what Jesus did and taught, and what happened to him.

What’s the purpose of these stories? Why do we keep remembering the Bible’s stories of Holy Week every year? Do we tell these stories in order to pass on interesting historical facts as if they’re part of a modern documentary film? Or is there another reason, deeper, bigger?