We have come to those days that are at the very heart of our Christian faith. On these days, in heart and mind, we walk with Jesus from his triumphal

entry into Jerusalem to the cross, and then, on Easter morning, we greet our risen Lord. It is such an old story,

and yet it is always fresh and new. I expect that no other story has been told as often, but year by year we re-tell it, and so we must, for it is the story

that defines us. As the Exodus has ever been for our Jewish brothers and sisters, so this story is for Christians. Is there a Sunday School room or hall that hasn't had a picture of Jesus riding on a donkey along a dusty road, with crowds of pilgrims waving palm branches?

I think we can all visualize the scene, and imagine what a high moment it must have been. The disciples must have been wild with joy, seeing Jesus acclaimed as king, hearing the shouts of "Hosanna!" Why on earth had Jesus talked as if going to Jerusalem was going to his death? He's king, and we'll be his courtiers!

Jesus, of course, had no such illusions. He knew what the religious authorities thought of him, and what lay ahead. It didn't take long for things to unfold as he knew they would.

At the temple the next day, Jesus did not like what he saw. In righteous anger, he chased away the merchants selling animals for sacrifice and the money changers, tipping over their tables! Pandemonium! Animals, coins everywhere! The priests and scribes were not happy! They had condoned all this, and possibly even profited from it. To them, Jesus was becoming more than a nuisance. This itinerant preacher was becoming downright dangerous! He had to go! But how to get at him when all the crowds w e r e a r o u n d h i m ? T h e r e would be a riot! And that is where Judas came in. We can only wonder how a man who had walked with Jesus for three years, listened to him, seen his works of love and compassion, how he could sell him to his enemies. But that is just what he did, only to realize too late the awful horror of what he had set in motion.

Time and space will not allow for the full story to be told here, of Jesus' last supper with his friends, of the agonized prayers in Gethsemane, the arrest, and the mockery of a trial. Yet for us who know the story so well, the scene outside Pilate's house must haunt us, with the crowds, incited by the priests, calling for Jesus' blood. "Crucify him!" And P i l a t e , who really c o u l d n ' t care one way or the other, let them have their way. It is almost too painful to think of the suffering of Jesus on that dark Friday we call Good Friday, yet think of it we must, and in our hearts we must be with him in his time of humiliation and torture.

We need to feel with him the pain as he is nailed to the cross. We need to know his desolation as he dies, feeling utterly forsaken. If we try to pass over these things, Easter loses its meaning for us.

Every year at this time I ask myself, had I been there, what would I have done? Would I have been there outside Pilate's house? Would I have let the powerful, pious ones from the temple persuade me to shout, "Crucify him!"? Or would I have stood, terrified,at the back of the the crowd, trying to make myself invisible? And would I, timid soul that I am, have dared to watch the dreadful scene at Golgtha?

How blessed we are that we are Easter people! We know, as Jesus' friends could never have guessed, that this was not the end, but truly a beginning. We know that the cross of shame and suffering was transformed by love into a throne of glory, the cruel crown of thorns into the noblest kingly crown. And we know that Easter morning became like the first of all mornings when, mystery of all mysteries, Jesus triumphed over death.

As we wait for the brightness of that day, May God give us grace to walk with Jesus the way of the cross, for only by enduring that darkness can we truly come to the light of the Resurrection, the light of Easter!