April in pleasant Palm Beach is no mask for the paradox of Holy Week. The tough patches of human life meet up with the realities of new life and hope. These mixed signals underlie every liturgy and sermon and gathering during this coming week.

Holy Week may be the most demanding and fulfilling time for a Christian. If we pay attention to the story at all, we find that we enter into the most radical array of emotions. What begins in triumph ends in death and sorrow. What begins in confidence collapses into bewilderment, denial and desertion. If life teaches that things get worse before they get better, this is the flagship story!

At Bethesda-by-the-Sea we join with people of faith around the world to live out the belief that what happened long ago and far away has everything to do with us, in the here and now. As we commit more of ourselves to more of Christ, may we be found asking: With the gift of my life, what would God have me do? Serve? Give? Participate? Worship? Learn? Pray?

Yes!

Have a blessed Holy Week.

Bob Dannals
Interim Rector