This post is reprinted
from March 19, 2018 and April 2, 2012. The references to celebrities with
criminal records are dated, but the point is timeless.
__________
No, this post isn’t about
Lindsay Lohan or Mike Tyson or Paris Hilton. A hundred years from now, they
will have faded from the public memory.
That’s something they
don’t share with the man who rode into town to cheering crowds on a Sunday,
only to be mocked and executed as a criminal before the week was up. Events we
are still talking about 2000 years later.
Talking about and
celebrating. My father took this picture while my family was attending the Palm
Sunday festivities in Jerusalem in 1958.
Lindsay and Mike and
Paris didn’t lose their celebrity status when they were convicted of their
crimes, and neither did Jesus of Nazareth.
But here is the crucial
difference: Jesus was sinless. He had no guilt to convict him.
Well, that isn’t quite
true.
He was guilty of love. A love so great that he paid the penalty for
the sins of all humankind.
His heart was heavy and
he died in anguish. But he did it by choice.
For me. For you.
And that’s something to
remember not just during Holy Week but every day of the year.