Holy Week Reflection for Palm Sunday - Cheering

Today, at the beginning of Holy Week, we have waved our palm branches and remembered Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. But Jesus was soon in trouble! And perhaps he knew exactly what he was doing.

Crowds can be dangerous places to be caught up in. I don’t know if you have ever been in such a crowd. I remember the old MAYC London Weekends where we would descend on London dressed from head to toe in green and yellow. One year MAYC weekend clashed with England versus Scotland, and we were on the underground and we quickly needed to get out of the crowd approaching us because it was dangerous. They clearly thought we were football supporters – Norwich City I guess. Compare that to rugby crowds – I was on Princes Street in Edinburgh a week yesterday following Scotland versus Ireland at Murrayfield. Pubs and restaurants were full of the two sets of supporters watching to see how England would do. It was good natured and fun to be amongst. There are over crowds that exhilarate us – worship in a big number at things like MAYC and Easter People or even as a Circuit family. I am challenging in a letter this week every church in the Circuit to make it a priority to be here next Sunday evening so we can share in lively Easter worship together. Of course, I am used to being ignored!

Sometimes we can be part of a crowd we really didn’t want to be in. I travelled home from holiday yesterday – due to engineering work 8 hours on a train from Berwick upon Tweed to Kings Cross. Until Newcastle, I had Coach G all to myself. That didn’t last long. A large group got on together with provisions. Coach G now party coach - all those who are around me are together about 30 of them and the gin, lager, Pinot Grigio and shouting loudly started before we left the station!!!! Four on the table opposite me had between them two bottles of white, one bottle of red, four cans of lager, and four cans of gin!

The vodka and the Daily Mirror crossword were opened as as we left York. The lady who clearly was in charge on her fourth glass of wine complains it wasn’t difficult enough.  At Doncaster the mini eggs were passed round. At Peterborough how I wished Brian Blessed were not one of the crossword answers. It was not fun listening to impressions of him. Then they started having a pop quiz involving blasting out tracks on the iPod for the carriage. Robbie Williams Angels with actions!

At Kings Cross they congratulated me for putting up with them! 15 London civil servants who were returning from Newcastle after an overnight sail there from Tilbury Docks (as you do)! I really must get a life...

Palm Sunday is all about crowds, as is most of this week really, responding to Jesus. Jerusalem was a hotbed of tension. The Passover heightened expectation for the Jews that God would come and do what they wanted to make them great again.

Perhaps we need to note that Sunday there were two processions, and two crowds reacting to them. On the other side of the city, Pontius Pilate was entering, coming in from the coast with 600 foot soldiers, horses, armour, banners and flags and standards bearing great carved golden eagles (the symbol of Roman authority), beating drums… Rome at Passover wanted Israel to be in no doubt about who was in charge. One writer has suggested that the cheers would have been eerily similar to the ones we think of when we remember this day. Caesar was Rome’s “Prince of Peace”; he was Rome’s “Son of God” and Pontius Pilate was his representative. Remember little posts were erected all over the city, the vertical pole of the cross, to remind people what would happen if there were insurrection.

Have we ever been in a crowd longing to speak out against what is happening but too frightened to do so? Have we ever been in a crowd whipped up by a few determined to convince us something wonderful is about to happen, even if it feels a bit dodgy? I have been to a few huge evangelical rallies like that, part of me was not comfortable being there, because I didn’t agree with the speaker. But it was easier not to go next year then to challenge him.

Then let’s go across the city to the Mount of Olives. Jesus came down the Mount of Olives on a donkey. Perhaps Jesus procession into Jerusalem was some sort of staged demonstration, to say to Pilate and Rome and the Jewish puppets, there is another way and it isn’t yours. Some sort of holy protests, some sort of evangelism to crowds awaiting the Messiah to come. Remember at Passover they believed that the Messiah of God would come to boot the Romans out and herald a new age. If you were in that part of the city, what would you have shouted at Jesus?

This morning at St Helens in All Age Worship we talked about what we do when we are in a crowd and what we get isn’t to our liking.

My football team, the proper Manchester team, I fear will sack Mr Lovely Pellegrini because he hasn’t won the Champions League for them. My post in the porch last night contained several election leaflets including a letter to me from David Cameron himself. If you don’t like this government we have had for the last five years, you can boot them out if you like, and we can all see what comes next. There are teenage girls bereft that Zayn has left One Direction. Some are forsaking the band. One supermarket, and this is serious, has reduced One Direction Easter eggs by 20p! “He has let us down” by having his arm round another girl’s waist when he is engaged to Perrie from Little Mix, apparently, and because he cannot hack fame anymore. Then what about Jeremy Clarkson? We shout sack him, rubbish policies, you’ve let me down, you deserve what you get. A crowd can quickly turn.

I think it is very significant there were two processions in Jerusalem that Sunday. I want to say to us tonight there are always two of them at least, and we have to decide which one we will join.

When we choose to forgive or not – we decide which crowd we will be in.

When we choose what to do with our time, our energy, our love as individuals – we decide which crowd we will be in.

When we choose what sort of church we will be – for ourselves or open to others like we were to Claire this morning at her children’s baptisms – which led me to book three more at the end from her friend asking questions – we decide what sort of community we will be. A new lady who has starting coming with her little boy to Pett thanked me for letting him run up to communion this morning. Her last church tutted loudly when he made any noise whatsoever.

When we protest, which I think is what Jesus was doing, showing the way of God, standing up for justice, peace, and love, we decide which crowd we are in. We will sing on Good Friday “he left his Father’s throne above, so free, so infinite his grace, emptied himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race. Tis mercy all, immense and free, for o my God, it found out me.” Will we sing it as his body, his crowd, and mean it? Mean it by showing it?

I like what Kathy Galloway writes about Palm Sunday:

“Palm Sunday is always happening, and we are always being confronted by the challenge of that different way of being; the way of peace that does not shrink from conflict but refuses violence, the way that does not theorise but engages with the real needs of suffering people, the way that sees the people who are overlooked and not counted, the way of self-offering.

As we walk with Jesus through Holy Week, let us pray for the courage to face these challenges, following faithfully in his way of compassion and solidarity.”

Which crowd am I in? What leader do I want to follow?