As I write these words, we are merely hours away from Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. This is one of our favorite Sundays of the year here at Peachtree Road UMC with the children entering the sanctuary waving their palm branches, the beautiful music offered by the choirs, and, yes, our favorite donkey “Jerusalem” leading the procession at the 11:15 am service. I love the passage we will read at the beginning of worship:

We are nearing the end of our Lenten journey, and I hope you sense that you have grown closer to Christ in this season. As I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday, life can throw curve balls that can disorient us. In each of those times, we discover the faithfulness of God and grow spiritually in our relationships. When we reorient our lives with Christ as our North Star, we find that our lives just work better. I hope you are discovering that truth in this season.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! The Irish have celebrated this day annually as a religious holiday for over one thousand years. This is the anniversary of the death of St. Patrick who lived in the 5th century and is credited with bringing Christianity to the Irish people. On this day I encourage you to prayerfully give thanks for those who brought Christianity to you.

We have reached the midpoint of our 40 days of fasting and prayer during the Lenten season, and I really am looking forward to worshiping with you Sunday. We are continuing our series entitled “The Sound of Silence” with this week’s message: “Be Thou My Vision.” No doubt you know the Irish hymn written in the 8th century by that name:

“We often forget that Christ loved to be silent. He set out for the desert, not to go into exile, but to encounter God. And at the most crucial moment in his life, when there was screaming on all sides, covering him with all sorts of lies and calumnies, when the high priest asked him: ‘Have you no answer to make?’ Jesus preferred silence…Silence is sacred because it is God’s dwelling place…This is the tragedy of the modern world: man separates himself from God because he no longer believes in the value of silence. Without silence, God disappears in the noise.” (page 80)

Earlier this week we began our journey through Lent with our Ash Wednesday services and entered a season of fasting and prayer. Several of you have asked me if I was serious last Sunday when I suggested we make each Friday in this season a day of fasting and prayer. Well, yeah, I was serious about that. Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness for forty days before launching his ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing.