Today we commemorate the day Jesus rode triumphally into Jerusalem as we begin Holy Week. May this week be richly blessed for all.
On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
+ Mary Oliver
Today we mark the fifth
Sunday of Lent. These days have gone
very quickly. During this Lenten season, Jesus continues to show us that God is
full of mercy and forgiveness. God looks beyond our faults and sees what we
need. All of us need God’s love which is everlasting no matter what.
In our Gospel today we hear
the familiar story of the woman accused of adultery being brought to Jesus by
the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus knew what
was behind them bringing her before Him.
They brought the woman but where was her partner as it takes two to tango. He was nowhere to be found. At this point we see Jesus bend down and start
writing in the sand. What was He
writing? Was he writing down the names of
those present? Was He writing down their
individual sins down? As Jesus writes
they begin to leave one by one, dropping their stones as they left. Jesus extends mercy and forgiveness to all.
Our loving God knows us at our deepest level. God knows our
strengths and abilities. God knows limitations and weaknesses but always offers
mercy as his gift to us all. When we look back over our lives and how far we
have come, we know that it must have been the hands of God that saved us from
ourselves.
I remember being on retreat
once and the director invited me to take a walk on the beach and sit with this
Gospel. As I did so she had given me an
exercise to do where I was invited to write in the sand all the things I wanted
to surrender to God. It did not take long
to write in the sand. The hard part came
when the next direction was to read the list I had written and then move my hand
over it and erase it all symbolizing leaving it with God. It was a most powerful exercise that I have
gone back to many times in my life. What
I learned from this exercise was the abundant love and mercy of God.
Perhaps today is a good day to look at the reality that God’s love surrounds us, and God knows us better than we know ourselves. God’s love for us is everlasting and will never change. Let us drop our stones and live in the love and mercy of our God.
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