Follow your passion!  I hear that instruction a lot these days.  I also find myself saying it to encourage people to seek their sense of God’s calling for their lives – God’s invitation to be all they can be.  For myself, I have a passion for music and for theological conversation.  That has led me to pursue ministry professionally.  I’m discovering that that I also have a passion for writing, including writing these e-notes to you each week.  Passion is an emotional and spiritual energy that moves people, events, and circumstances by its power.  Passion is a way that faith comes to life.

In the introduction to their book The Last Week, authors Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan remind us of the importance of passion in the life of Jesus.  We call the period of eight days beginning with Palm Sunday and culminating on Easter Sunday – the last week of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry – Holy Week.   Palm Sunday is often called Passion Sunday because it represents the beginning of the time of Jesus’ suffering -- his passion.  The Latin root of passion (passio) means suffering and, in Christian usage, the passion of Christ has usually meant his experience of betrayal and crucifixion.  In our more familiar usage, however, passion is that powerful emotional and spiritual energy. 

Borg and Crossan make the point that, in Mark’s Gospel, it is the passion of Jesus that guides so much of his action during the events of Holy Week.  Jesus was passionate in terms of God’s Kingdom – the alternative to Caesar’s kingdom.  He was passionate about people learning and living in God’s transformative power as opposed to Rome’s coercive power.  And he was passionate about teaching people the abundance of life in God’s compassionate kingdom in contrast to the scarcity of life under Roman domination. 

Jesus’ passion for justice compelled his choice to confront the corrupt Jewish leadership in the Temple.  This choice seems to have led inevitably to his passion of suffering and death.  Those same choices led as well to the newness of life reflected in his resurrection. His example, as well as his teaching, challenges each of us today to discover and follow our passion for justice, peace, and compassion

The more honest we are about our passion, the more meaningful we will find the ways we invest our time, energy, and wealth.  What is it you feel passionate about being and doing?  Life really is too short to fill with lesser work.  Life really is too long to spend doing what does not reflect our passion.  When you and I choose to live according to our deep passion, it will lead to some passion of suffering.  It will also lead to life that is abundant, rich, and meaningful.

Thanks for continuing to bless me as we journey together.

--Jack Price

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