Abide in the Third Side
Holy Week presents one of the clearest and most uncomfortable pictures of human nature we will ever see.
On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem to celebration. Crowds gathered. People laid down palm branches. They shouted praise and welcomed Him as the king they had been waiting for — a deliverer, a conqueror, a figure who would meet their expectations and fulfill their hopes.
Just a few days later, many of those same voices were part of a very different chorus.
“Crucify Him!”
In both moments — the triumphal entry and the crucifixion — we see the same underlying force at work: human beings driven by emotion. On Sunday, it was excitement, hope and expectation. By Friday, it had become anger, disappointment and frustration.
That contrast is not just a historical detail. It is a warning because the same tendencies are alive and well today.
We still elevate people when they align with what we want. We still turn on them when they don’t. We still allow emotion — whether it’s enthusiasm or outrage — to drive our reactions, our words and our decisions.
And in doing so, we often become something we never intended to be.
The miracle of Easter calls us to something different.
It calls us to pause. To take a breath. To step back from the noise and the heat of the moment and look at one another through a different lens — the same lens Christ uses when He looks at us.
Love. Not conditional. Not transactional. Not dependent on agreement. Just love God and love one another.
It sounds simple, but it is not easy, especially in a year like this one.
Wyoming is heading into an important election cycle, and there will be no shortage of disagreement. There will be strong opinions, sharp debates and, if we’re not careful, the same kind of emotional swings that defined Holy Week.
But we do not have to give in to our basest instincts. We do not have to let passion turn into anger, or disagreement turn into division. We do not have to wish bad things on people we oppose or keep score of every perceived slight.
That is what the crowd did on Palm Sunday — elevating based on expectation. That is what the crowd did on Good Friday — condemning based on disappointment. Neither response reflected the heart of Christ.
This is why we need the Third Side — not a middle ground of convenience, but a higher ground of principle.
The Third Side is a place where we refuse to be pulled apart by emotion, loyalty, frustration or fear. A place where we choose discipline over reaction. A place where we measure our thoughts, our words and our actions against something greater than ourselves.
It is better to find unity through love than victory through division, and it is better to lean on our best instincts as human beings — and as children of God — than to be driven by whatever outrage happens to be in front of us at the moment.
There are plenty of voices in modern media and politics that want to feed us something else entirely because they profit from outrage and depend on division. They thrive when we react instead of reflect but you don’t have
to take the bait because there is a better way.
Easter is a good place to start.
Worship at the church of your choice this Sunday. If you haven’t been in a while, use it as an opportunity to reconnect with something deeper and more grounding than the daily churn of headlines and arguments. If the first place you go doesn’t feel like the right fit, try another next week. There are plenty of options in Newcastle and across Weston County.
The point is not where you sit, but that you show up. Showing up is important because it is a lot easier to have faith in God — instead of our often-failing systems — but only if you actually spend some time with Him.
That time steadies you. It smooths out the highs and lows. It gives you perspective when everything else is trying to pull you off balance, and from that place, you are far better equipped to engage with the world around you in a way that reflects something higher. That is how we begin to build something better — a more productive, less contentious community and state.
We don’t achieve that vision by demanding it from others first, but by living it ourselves and by expecting it from those who seek to lead us.
If we do that — if we ground ourselves in something deeper than emotion and commit to treating our friends, neighbors and fellow community members with the kind of love Christ has shown us — we won’t just navigate this election year more
effectively.
We will help lead it to a better place...from the Third Side.