I Worship You

 

I worship you

I stand and sing

I worship you, Exalted King

To you I cling.

I worship you

I bow and kneel

I worship you

Lord, be revealed

I worship you, Exalted King

To you I cling.

On my chair lay a cross fashioned out of a strip of palm branch. I grew up in a tradition of symbols providing a touchstone with the divine. As a young teenager, I sat for many an hour with other church teens fashioning palm crosses to be distributed on Palm Sunday. The cross on my chair yesterday briefly took me back to those happy hours.

Then we stood to worship, singing Hosanna. Hosanna. In my upstretched hand I held the palm cross and waved it before my Lord and King. As I did so, I realised that I was not holding the cross lightly. I was clinging to it. Gripping it as with all my might.

The enormity of Jesus’ suffering on the cross for me gripped me. The unconditional, endless love of the divine Saviour as he hung there in agony, never giving up on me: it hit me with a wave of gratitude and humility. I sensed his presence powerfully as I poured out my heart to him.

Later, in sharing the profound experience I’d had, initiated by God through that palm cross, I explained that I recognised that I am totally clinging to his cross. Gripping it, more aware than ever of my absolute dependence on Him.

I sensed by others’ reactions that they wanted to extend compassion to me, thinking I was at a particularly low point. But no. Not low, but a new awareness of the absolute dependency we all have on the Cross of Christ. It is a delusion to assume we just need to hold tight when times are rough for us individually or globally. It reveals our pride, our independent streaks. Rebelliousness.

May we all be clinging to the cross today and every day as we walk with alert prayerfulness through this Holy Week, to the cross, through the cross and to the glorious day of victory and resurrection. May we all be exquisitely aware of our own dependence on his love and sacrifice and his saving grace.

Hosanna. Save us, Lord. Hosanna.