The day Jesus entered Jerusalem before His

death and resurrection is known as Palm Sunday. This marks the beginning of the week of Christ’s passion. The word ‘passion’ comes from a Latin word which means ‘suffering’. The suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross has always been referred to as The Passion. There is even a movie by that name. In modern times, we have come to apply the word passion to mean any kind of strong feeling, or commitment, even though it more properly it describes a suffering for some worthwhile thing.

In many ways we have lost this sense of the word, in part perhaps, because there is so little of this kind of passion left in the western world. We ascribe the word passion to how we feel about sports teams, music, or our political views. Would you be willing to suffer for those things?

How different is the passion of Jesus: directed by God and willingly accepted. Jesus actively chose His path and the sufferings that followed. In Jesus we see not only the full depth of God’s passion for us and the suffering that was a necessary part of it, but also the full depth of one perfect human’s passion for God (in Jesus): obedience that led to death.

How do we respond to God’s call to follow Him?

Are we passionate? Or passive? To walk with Jesus, who said, “take up your cross and follow me,” we must accept God’s direction and choose to follow the path laid out for us. This is a path of certain passion (suffering), but also certain hope because of the victory we have through Christ’s resurrection.

Verses to read and meditate on:

Matthew 10: 24-32, 38-39 (TEV); Psalm 130 (NLT)