Palm Sunday - Come and See...

I thought it might be a good discipline to write something every day in Holy Week, whatever comes into my head really. This year perhaps because of where we find ourselves, I feel the week ahead of us identifies with every part of our human existence. My spiritual director has suggested I create a Holy Week programme for me, not to give out to others, though I find spiritual strength doing that, but for me as a disciple of Christ. 

So this week, I’ll be dipping into on line stuff at Ripon Cathedral, watching a drama on zoom from Harpenden, filming a Tenebrae service outside, and trying to do some reading. Barbara Brown Taylor’s “God in Pain” is my book for the week. I’ll keep saying this - we need to do the whole week! Ian Black in Peterborough said in his sermon this morning to go straight from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday will make Easter Sunday quite hollow and the story will be a strange, filleted version minus its guts and innards. 

It was really good to be led this morning in worship by my colleague Keith Phipps. He reminded us that on Palm Sunday the week begins with a clash of ideals. Jesus enters the boiling pot of Passover time in Jerusalem. A small group of his disciples and pilgrims follow him. A crowd gathers in curiosity. 

Remember that Passover was always a time of heightened emotions. There was memory of liberation from slavery in the Exodus and the saving power of God, re-enacted every year in the festival as a present reality. This year as Jesus arrives, and the crowd shouts “Hosanna” they want saving again. Their yoke now wasn’t Egypt but Rome and their faith story was that one day God would send a Messiah to boot the oppressor out and restore them as a people with peace and prosperity. 

Maybe this is the day, people said to each other. Maybe this strange rabbi from Galilee is the one who comes in the name of the Lord to make it all better. Maybe he is the king we need. Enough of Pilate and his regime. Maybe the reign of God is close, so maybe we need to go out and have a look... oh for our churches to do radical stuff that might arouse curiosity today! 

Elsewhere in the city another group watches. The Jewish authorities are watching. This Jesus has caught their attention and they are worried. Any troublemaker has to be dealt with so we shall see their intervention as this week unfolds. So they circle round him looking for ways to get rid of him. His every word and action is analysed. 

Keith picked a Graham Kendrick hymn this morning in our service: “Come and see” - I don’t think I’ve ever used it but since I heard the tune the other day I’ve been singing it in the shower (apparently!) We are invited to stop this week and look at what is passing in front of us. Do we really understand what is entering our city? Do we cheer a bit but run away when we don’t like where the donkey riding king is going?

 I use Bonhoeffer a lot in Holy Week. Bonhoeffer reminds us that when Christ bids us, he bids us come and die. I’m not sure we like that. We can easily wave a palm branch. We don’t easily stand by a cross. Perhaps that’s why many people don’t do Good Friday. Let’s include the guts and innards of this story however horrid they are. Let’s stay and sing all week. 

I guess this week begins with Jesus asking what really matters for us. He invites us to come and see how things can be different. But for a different way to come it may involve a bit of costly sacrifice on our part and that might not be attractive. But it is necessary. 

Come and see, come and see
Come and see the King of love
See the purple robe and crown of thorns he wears
Soldiers mock, rulers sneer
As he lifts the cruel cross
Lone and friendless now he climbs towards the hill.

We worship at your feet
Where wrath and mercy meet
And a guilty world is washed
By love's pure stream
For us he was made sin
Oh, help me take it in
Deep wounds of love cry out 'Father, forgive'
I worship, I worship
The Lamb who was slain.

Come and weep, come and mourn
For your sin that pierced him there
So much deeper than the wounds of thorn and nail
All our pride, all our greed
All our fallenness and shame
And the Lord has laid the punishment on him.

Man of heaven, born to earth
To restore us to your heaven
Here we bow in awe beneath
Your searching eyes
From your tears comes our joy
From your death our life shall spring
By your resurrection power we shall rise.