This week, I would like to look at two tangents from this. The first is about our own personal enslavement, exploring what we do to ourselves to prevent us from moving forward on our journey toward God. The other is relating our personal enslavement as it relates to the grace that we are given by the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. In exploring that, I’ve chosen several different versions of the song ‘Amazing Grace.’

In exploring our own personal enslavement, I do not wish to belittle the severity of the British slave trade, or modern day slavery. It was and is atrocious. I’m happy to talk about that with any of you in a different context. But for now, I want us to think about what psychological barriers we have in our daily lives and in our spiritual lives. What I’m talking about are those personal issues we have that prevent us from being the person we want to be; the psychological barriers to reaching for our life’s goals. Most importantly, what prevents us from accepting the grace that is given to us by Christ? Christ tells us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. But so many of us find it difficult to love ourselves; we find it difficult to accept that there could be a God who loves us so much that He would die for us. We trap ourselves in self-doubt; we focus on what the Bible refers to as us being “slaves to sin”. But that is the amazing nature of the grace that we are given.

[PLAY TRACK AT THIS POINT]

A bit confusing; a bit disorienting; a bit distracting. We just heard the Passion story. We started at Christ’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, and there was rejoicing and happiness. But then we jump straight onto the Crucifixion and Death of Jesus. All that together is confusing to hear. Imagine being one of the Disciples who, in that time, had supper with Jesus, or simply an onlooker at the time. It was a confusing, disorienting, distracting, disturbing time. I wanted to illustrate that in the music.

But as we go one through Holy Week and on into Easter, as we commemorate each event of that week individually, it becomes clearer, understandable, comprehensible. Today, Palm Sunday, presents us with the confusion of the time of Christ’s suffering. But 2,000 years later, we have the chance to look back and pull it apart, look at it all in individual pieces, and we see the grace that was given to us.

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

We begin to wade through Holy Week. If we really engage with Holy Week, we will find ourselves lost at various points. If we really look inside ourselves, we will find ourselves lost on our journey toward a fully open relationship with a God who loves us. Let us journey together toward Christ, Christ who opens our eyes and frees us from the slavery of sin, Christ who is the Amazing Grace.

Amen.