Lent Devotional | Palm Sunday

Embracing the Emotional Mosaic

As our friend sat with us in our pain, they reminded us that our body was created to hold more than one emotion and to feel them deeply. So just as we were experiencing sadness, we shouldn’t reject all feelings of joy and delight. Rather, make space for the dichotomy of both and feel them each fully. 

I have been reflecting this Lenten season on how Jesus so beautifully embodied this. Riding into Jerusalem that day. What would Jesus have been feeling as He witnessed the crowds, the celebrating, the delight? Would He have delighted seeing joy in the faces of the image bearers around him? 

Would He have felt love in the adoration being aimed His way? 

Would He have felt grief, as He heard cries for a liberator? 

Would He have felt anxiety, knowing His own pain and embarrassment to come?

Luke 19:41 and Luke 19:37-38 show us that Jesus held space for the people to cry out, celebrate, worship while also feeling deep grief and weeping. 

We see again, earlier in Jesus’ life (John 11), Jesus grieved over the loss of a beloved friend. I love that Jesus took time and space to feel all of His emotions. He did not disregard His sadness, with the knowledge that the pain would soon be forgotten and be in each other’s presence again. Jesus felt deeply. 

Often, I find myself wanting to skip the celebration, because the pain feels too big, or skip the pain altogether and jump to the “I’m good, God’s good” part of the pain. But Jesus held space for each emotion. The grief, the celebration. 

As we celebrate Palm Sunday in 2024, it is no secret that we are all feeling a juxtaposition of emotions, be it in our own lives or the reality of so much of the global majority. 

I find hope in how Jesus made space for His emotions. I find space for deep belly filled laughs and soul crushing wails, knowing Jesus himself, on some of the most grueling of days, made space to feel. 

I wonder if it was in the smiles of the crowds, and in his own sobs if it was when he felt Holy Spirit closest? 

Tryphena Perumalla–Gagnon

Podcaster, Speaker, Cohost
See Hear Love

Prayer

Jesus, thank you that when the Creator created us, we were declared good. Thank you that that includes our emotions, the beautiful, the big and the messy. Thank you that You modeled making space for your joy and grief as You walked this earth. Holy Spirit, thank you that Your presence is close to us in the highs and the lows. Will Your presence and love be tangible this Lenten season as we literally and figuratively, feel all the feels?

Application

I wonder what your season of life looks like right now. What are the moments of today that you need to give yourself space to grieve, mourn, and be angry? What are the parts of today that you need to celebrate, delight in, ruminate over? How can you invite Jesus into the juxtaposition of emotions that we navigate on the day to day? How can you celebrate the feelings you have been created to feel?