The coming week in the Christian calendar offers an illustration of dissonance. Hallelujahs ring for the One who altered the human experience of many maimed physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Jeers dominate the scene just days later. How people may hold competing beliefs about one subject, much less a person seems hard to fathom. Yet, we sometimes bear in our own bodies an illustration of that kind of dissonance. With our words we make certain claims. With our actions we evidence something opposite.

In Philippians 2, Paul offers a hymn we should not just sing but memorize. Our minds are a terrible thing to waste on inactivity in the body. So, to have the mind of Christ is not to hold one thing and do another – something of a dissonance of being. Instead, we are to hold on to our place in Christ in such a way we are willing to follow him all the way down, to the death of self and an allegiance to God expressed in trust and faithfulness.

Here are some thoughts as you anticipate Palm Sunday and Passion Week. What are your thoughts?