I’ve been thinking today with three congregations about the Holy Week story being a theological and political drama with complex plot lines and characters deeply involved in events and reacting to them in different ways.
Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday heralded as king by some who watched. Remember Jerusalem was a boiling pot of expectation for the Jews gathering as every year for Passover. God would intervene one year and a Messiah would come to liberate God’s people like they were liberated from Egypt generations before. A book I read last week suggests there was another procession entering the city that on the opposite side to Jesus: a procession with Pontius Pilate in it, the Roman governor, a procession of might and power, whose entry into the city would remind people at a time of heightened tension who was in charge and what would happen to troublemakers.
The question for us in Holy Week is which leader, which agenda, will I follow. Do I follow the Prince of Peace, heralding the coming of the Kingdom of God, or do I meekly toe the line and pretend I am following human greed and a narrow way happily? Do I stand up for Jesus, or am I scared that will bring me trouble?
Tonight I tried an interactive bible study in my evening service. Twenty of us tried to understand what each character in the drama was thinking, and where Jesus fitted into their ideas. Each made a choice: follow or flee, celebrate or crucify, support or suppress. What choice will we make this week?
Before my evening service I went to most of a performance of Olivet to Calvary in the cathedral. The hymn Just as I am is part of Maunder’s work. We are invited to follow, just as we are, this week. There are other processions, other causes, which might try and lure us into supporting them. It’s hard. But to join Jesus is to find life. So will we follow this week, or have we other plans or are our church diaries too full?
We have a choice and our response matters.
Would I have answered when you called,
“Come, follow, follow me!”?
Would I at once have left behind
both work and family?
Or would the old, familiar round
have held me by its claim
and kept the spark within my heart
from bursting into flame?
“Come, follow, follow me!”?
Would I at once have left behind
both work and family?
Or would the old, familiar round
have held me by its claim
and kept the spark within my heart
from bursting into flame?
True and humble king,
hailed by the crowd as Messiah:
grant us the faith to know you and love you,
that we may be found beside you
on the way of the cross,
which is the path of glory.
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