The Way of Jesus is not about how to get to heaven after life on earth. The Way of Jesus is about how to bring the realm of heaven into life on earth.

Jesus meant it when he taught his followers that we should pray to God, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus meant it when he taught that the “realm of heaven is among you” here and now if only we could recognize it. Jesus meant it when he showed the world what it means to live out in the course of a human life, in the here and now, on earth a total embodiment of God’s Love Supreme, on earth as it is in heaven.

Jesus showed the astonishing, transcendent beauty of this, for the realm of heaven is indeed beyond the limitations of what we can see and hear and touch. Jesus showed the great healing power of this, for the realm of heaven indeed calls us to a truer wholeness and belonging in the embrace of our Holy Creator. Jesus showed as well the confrontations and challenges of this, for the realm of heaven invites us to a greater integrity and calls us to witness the places of dissonance between our ways of life as they are and the ways of life as God intends us to be.

The story of Holy Week is the story of this confrontation with the corrupted powers of this world, a confrontation which Jesus makes clear he undergoes out of a deep, deep love for his people and this world. Jesus’ challenge to the forces of sin in fact reveals just how enduring and powerful is God’s commitment to love.

In the story of Jesus’ last week, we see how Jesus exposes the forces of sin and their corrupting influence over so many aspects of human life: our ways of twisting religion into the worship of profit and power, our ways of trying to achieve safety and salvation through violence and scapegoating, our ways of denying and hiding our shadow sides, and justifying abuse and domination.

In the story of Jesus’ last week, we see how the forces of sin responded to Jesus’ challenge by flaring up and seeking to destroy him. But in the resurrection of Easter we see the triumph of God’s love over those forces of sin and death, we see the power of God’s enduring promise to reconcile all creation to Godself, to bring heaven to earth in the end, and make all things news, despite all our human efforts to resist it.

It is essential that we keep God’s unconditional love front and center as we explore the meanings of Holy Week and how they speak to us in our lives and times. Because otherwise we may be overcome with anger, on the one hand, or sorrow, on the other.

Anger, sorrow, and love: these have been big themes that have come up in this journey of Lent this year for those of us who have participated in our weekly study and discussion group exploring Richard Rohr’s latest book, “The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage.” In this book Richard Rohr looks at the spiritual evolution that the Hebrew prophets demonstrate as they sought to bring their experiences of God’s holiness to bear in the crises of their times. As Rohr makes clear, this is very helpful to us in exploring the meaning of Jesus for our lives and times, because Jesus was very much in the lineage of the prophets and, you could say, is their fulfillment.

Rohr notices that, “All the prophets started with anger, or even rage, at the right things: injustice, oppression, deceit, misuse of money, power, even religion itself. But with only a couple of exceptions, they did not stop there. They were not just reformers; they were also mystics who were captivated by the wholeness and beauty at the heart of reality at the same time as they were confronting injustice.” – (Rohr, The Tears of Things, pg. 9)

“their anger evolves into a compassionate and healing vision for the common good, inspired by their direct experience of divine love.”

The heart of this transformative journey is what Rohr calls “the Tears of Things.”

Jesus and the prophets, Rohr writes, “invite us into a divine sadness about reality itself, much more than mere outrage at this or that event… Felt reality is invariably wept reality, and wept reality is soon compassion and kindness. Decisive and harsh judgments slip away” (Rohr, “The Tears of Things,” p.97)

In the Holy Week story, we see how Jesus does act in anger in flipping over the tables of the moneychangers in the temple. We see how he protests the corruption of religion, driven by profit and power, commodifying the means of salvation, using God-talk to justify violence and greed and the worship of depraved human kings.

How have you known some of that anger?

But more than anger, the overriding emotion of Holy Week is sadness … sadness and great, great love.

How have you known some of that sadness?

Remember how Jesus wept over Jerusalem:

“If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

He says this through tears:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

These are the kinds of tears that can only come from tremendous love.

Richard Rohr writes that Jesus’ message from the cross is about unfailing love through deep tragedy: “Life is inherently sad … humanity is foundationally unfaithful to love and truth” yet through it all God loves us unconditionally, and promises restoration despite ourselves – (Rohr, “The Tears of Things,” p.99)

Because of this gift of God’s grace, we can share in this love, and share in some of its cost in tears:

 “In my experience, tears have helped me glimpse the big secret that I still only half know – that human beings are really made of love and for love.” – (Rohr, “The Tears of Things,” p.100)

We must be led by this love, and by its divine source in God – or else we will be overcome by anger or sunk by tears or paralyzed by numbness:

“Only love can handle the great truths.” – (Rohr, “The Tears of Things,” p. 140)

“Our love matters in this universe” – (Rohr, “The Tears of Things,” p. 141)

Through love we can taste something of the realm of heaven here on earth.

How have you known some of that love?

Let us let this love from God guide us, through our anger, through our tears, in hope and trust for what we see revealed through Jesus this Holy Week and Easter, that God will ultimately reconcile all creation to Godself and truly bring about the realm of heaven on earth… regardless of our flaws and fragility, our fallibilities and evil shadow-sides … simply out of love, out of love, out of nothing other than love. 

Thanks be to God.

Delivered Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge.

Image from Illustrated Ministry