Today we observe both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday in the same act of worship.

The irony is broad, and the contrast stark.

In the Liturgy of the Palms, we mark the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. In the Liturgy of the Passion, we mark the suffering and death of Jesus on a cross.

In the Liturgy of the Palms, we hear the crowd chanting: "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" (Mark 11:9) In the Liturgy of the Passion, we hear the same voices shouting: "Crucify him." Not once, but twice: "Crucify him." (Mark 15:13-14)

In the Liturgy of the Palms, Jesus rides upon a colt. He is greeted as a hero. In front of him, people spread their cloaks on the ground, and branches they have cut in the fields. (Mark 11:7) In the Liturgy of the Passion, Jesus is mocked: Jesus is beaten, and spat upon. Soldiers lead him on foot, and he is treated as a criminal.

In the Liturgy of the Palms, Jesus has friends - twelve loyal friends who serve and obey him, and who profess their love towards him. In the Liturgy of the Passion, Jesus has no friends. He is rejected. He is betrayed, and bereft of love. And he is utterly alone.

In the Liturgy of the Palms, Jesus is accorded great dignity. In the Liturgy of the Passion, his dignity has been stripped away. He is dressed in a purple costume, like a clown - and he is ridiculed.

In the Liturgy of the Palms, Jesus is whole - strong in mind, body and spirit. He is confident, and in control. In the Liturgy of the Passion, Jesus has lost both confidence and control. His mind, and body, and spirit are broken: his bones are shattered, and his warm blood stains the earth. He is enveloped by a sense of despair, and a profound sense of abandonment. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) "Why have you forsaken me?"

I was speaking to a friend recently about the contrast that exists between our texts for today, and the intermingling of joy and sorrow in this one service. My friend asked me if this was not, in fact, simply a reflection of human living. Didn't each of us - at one time or another - experience this movement from exhilaration to despair? Indeed, didn't each of us carry both exhilaration and despair simultaneously in our hearts?

I thought about these questions quite a lot this week. And I concluded that my friend was right. Life permits no one the opportunity to escape suffering. And each of us experiences, to a greater or lesser degree, something that a patient of Dr. Irvin D. Yalom calls "Existence pain. Pain that is always there, whirring continuously just beneath the membrane of life."

I think that I sense this "existence pain" fairly often, in both myself and in others. I know that I sense it most Sundays at church.

I have spoken in the past, from this pulpit, about the sense of joy one experiences in the co-presence of community and Spirit in acts of worship. It's something that, for me, is palpable - and that lingers in sacred spaces such as this. However, I have come to believe that this joy does not exist in isolation. Rather, this joy is intermingled with something less visible, and less talked-about. This joy is intermingled with brokenness, pain, and "sacred sorrow." (John E. Nelson, M.D., and Andrea Nelson, Psy.D.)

Each Sunday, silent, distress-filled voices plead for help in this place.

Each Sunday, there is pain, and desolation, in this place.

• Those of us who have been "running on empty" far too long. Those of us who are sick, fearful, lonely, or grieving.



• Those of us who are filled with desperation - filled with self-loathing, self-blaming, and who feel like failures. Those of us who lie in bed, through the endless hours of the night, staring up at the ceiling.



• Those of us with a lifetime of tears, just below the surface of smiling faces, going through the motions of worship, with less and less confidence that any of it really matters at all.

We rarely share this "existence pain" one with the other, but I am convinced that it's here, and that it's with us always.

We have now entered Holy Week. This week, we are invited to enter into the suffering of Jesus. It is the season of our soul's dark night - the season just before sunrise.

I tend to believe that Jesus bore our pain and suffering - and the pain, and suffering, and brokenness of the world - so that he could empathize more perfectly with the world, so that his love for the world would be fully perfected.

Perhaps it's true that we must experience some measure of suffering for a similar reason; that is, to expand our capacity for empathy, compassion, and - ultimately - for love.

It is good that Jesus can empathize with us. As we embrace our own brokenness - as we attend to the silent, distressed-filled "screams" within us - then we might empathize more perfectly, not only with Him, but with our neighbor as well.