It’s that thing that you know you’ve got to do; creating it, renovating it, ditching it, making it, or making due with it. It’s taking the medicine, cleaning out the pantry, giving to one more charity, doing one more weekly session of physical therapy.

And there’s a lot of resistance there, mainly because whenever we try to do something that betters ourselves or the world we meet opposition.

Yet we know it’s what we’ve got to do.

Which is why we foot-drag and hesitate, like Jesus in Sunday’s gospel, right before he’s beaten and killed, and he prays, ‘If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.’

He knows what he’s got to do. And the ‘if possible’ and ‘not what I want but what you want’ are simply ways to couch and qualify, because at the end of the day Jesus knows he’s got to drink that cup - and go through with the toughest work of his life.

So Jesus pushes through, buckles down, and just does it.  And he relied on three things: he asked God, he asked himself, and he acted on his conviction.

We need to do this if we’re going to do that.

Ask God – is this what you want done? Ask ourselves – is my conscience suggesting this is it? Then put it into high gear and do it. No further explanation. Do it.

Palm Sunday is a call to do the tough work. Not avoid it, medicate it, or put it off one moment longer. What’s that tough work for you and what are you doing about it?

We need to do this if we’re going to do that.