Closed fist…open hand

I try to draw a congregation into the drama of Holy Week, recognising that many there on Palm Sunday will not engage until Easter Sunday and Resurrection. This Sunday I adapted a piece I wrote in 2017. In the light of all the woes of the world the choice exemplified by Jesus between closed fist and open hand resonate as much as ever.

I shared a very short poem by Carl Sandberg called Choose.

The single clenched fist lifted and ready,

Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.

Choose:

For we meet by one or the other.

The contrast was made between Judas, who chose the closed fist and Jesus: ‘hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered.’

Open-handed God

whose giving never fails

draw us into your journey this Holy Week

so that dying to self

we may rise to eternal life.

Amen.