​10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
~Matthew 21:10-11
 
It was a different kind of day. Crowds gathered. Palms and coats spread. Beautiful, frenzied chaos! Something, someone was coming and the world was literally quaking with the disruption and anticipation. Nothing would be the same by week’s end, or ever.
 
Part of the story of this Palm Sunday is connection. Jesus had a guy (or a woman) or two he knew who could source a donkey, and an upper room to use. He had developed a vast network of disciples and partners and allies who spill out of the story! The connection of relationships banded people together and created a movement for care and communion among a surprisingly diverse group of beloveds. Friendship and companionship, mutual celebration and a deep sense of belonging and completeness were the astonishing result. It turns out that relationships are what we need most to thrive—more than wealth, more than stuff, more than power—to get us through the highs and lows that are mirrored in the Holy Week that follows.
 
This, of course, is what the community at Bridge Ministries has long known. They teach it by gathering regularly around a meal and celebration, by living it out joyfully together within our communities. We will gather this Sunday along with our friends from Bridge. We find that we are both sustained physically and emotionally, bodily and spiritually with these shared gatherings over the years.
 
In order to accommodate our Bridge Ministry community siblings, this Sunday only, worship begins at 11:00am. Join us. There is a place for you here.
 
Enter into worship. *This Sunday in-person only*
 
Readings: Matthew 21:1-11 † Psalm 118 † Isaiah 50:4-9a † Psalm 31:9-16 † Philippians 2:5-11 † Matthew 27:11-54
 
About the Art: Mueller-Nelson, Gertrude. Palm Sunday Clipart. From Clip Art for Celebrations and Service. Pueblo Publishing, 1990. 

He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
~Ezekiel 37:3
 
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
~John 11:25-26
 
The far reaches of evil—the slaughter of school children, the callous regard for the poor—the deafness to God's voice for justice and the care of all creation, is an ongoing reality that cannot be glossed over with a word that everything will be all right with God in charge. Evil is real and ever-present. It is there in the hubris of the powerful. It is there in major tragedies and the suffering they cause. It is present in our own quiet desperation. And true religion does not gloss over these realities. It engages it. True religion renounces evil and actively resists its power in the world.
 
And the good news is that this understanding is at the very core of Christian faith. The stories of our faith are not naïve. In John’s story, the disciples are painfully aware of the presence of danger. They know all too well that the last time Jesus was near Jerusalem he just barely escaped with his life. And Thomas is sure that to return means certain death. And while his dire predictions about Jesus’ immediate death don't come to pass in this story, it turns out he is not wrong. Had we read the next few verses we would have seen that Jesus' return to Bethany does indeed set in motion the story of his death.
 
And Lazarus isn’t allowed to rest either. We find out that, ironically, now that he is raised from the dead his life is in grave danger. The resistance to this story of life only increases as a result of the raising of Lazarus. And yet, even as his prediction comes to pass, John’s story suggests Thomas’ despair is unfounded. Even in this death God works. Indeed, with God, death is a prelude to new life. Self-sacrifice is the way to progress.
 
Look at the seed sprouting. Smell the fragrance of new life flowering all around you. Dry bones? Look again. What do you see?
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Ezekiel 37:1-14 † Psalm 130 † Romans 8:6-11 † John 11:1-45
 
About the Art: Gogh, Vincent van, 1853-1890. Raising of Lazarus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57322 [retrieved March 4, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De_opwekking_van_Lazarus_(naar_Rembrandt)_-_s0169V1962_-_Van_Gogh_Museum.jpg.

For [God’s] is the sea, for she made it,
and the dry land, which her hands have crafted.
~Psalm 95:5 
 
Water. You can’t live without it; sometimes you can’t live with it. Lake Tahoe is buried under the frozen stuff currently creating all sorts of havoc, while much of the west is drowning in a self-made water shortage that a deepening drought will only make more devastating. It seems in these days in the Anthropocene you either need a canteen or a life raft. You need water from a rock, or you need to strike a path through the depths (that will also cover a pursuing army).
 
Water is a big deal in our religious imagery because it has always been a big deal in human survival and well-being. Floods become symbols of judgment and promise, sometimes troubling ones. Is the wholesale elimination of the unrighteous in Noah’s story really that much better than the Mesopotamian tale of a genocidal flood because the people were just too noisy (and irritating)?
 
The depths hold vast mysteries and their lurking monsters. Wells become places of meeting. Hagar and her son meet God. Rachel and Rebekah and Zipporah meet their matches. So what’s up with this meeting between Jesus and the Samaritan?
 
We may not really know, despite all of our ideas about it. But that’s always the case, we might argue, with a living God and living water. And that is reason enough to hope. Indeed, “Is the Lord among us or not?” is always a live question—or at least the how of it is for a Spirit who moves over the waters effortlessly, like a breath.
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Exodus 17:1-7 † Psalm 95 † Romans 5:1-11 † John 4:5-42
 
About the Art: Koenig, Peter. Christ at the Well, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58521 [retrieved February 25, 2026]. Original source: Peter Winfried (Canisius) Koenig, https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/