I went out looking for a children’s book telling the Easter story on Friday afternoon as I was doing the all age thing with Lego at Bedale this afternoon. I went into the bookshop. They know me in there. I said,“you’ve got books on chickens and bunnies and spring, you’ve not got one on the Easter story.” To which they said “um, that was rather an oversight on our part.” It’s so easy to pretend this Holy Week is just light and fluffy. We wave palm branches today, and we see an empty tomb and shout he is risen next Sunday.
We choose to ignore what comes in between and for so many people this week it is a festival of spring. Better weather is coming. We put the clocks forward next Sunday morning. It’s also easy to make Palm Sunday a happy and joyful spectacle but for me it’s about Jesus riding into trouble and danger. Why? Because he confronts the world with a radical new way he meets opposition.
How have you spent Palm Sunday? I began with an open air act of witness in Ripon led by the cathedral but with me reading the Gospel, then my service at Allhallowgate then leading some children in Bedale using Lego to tell the story of Holy Week and then listening to Olivet to Calvary sung by the cathedral choir. I love Olivet to Calvary! Just as I am makes me very emotional.
On Palm Sunday we have this procession that has this radical Jesus riding the colt of a donkey displaying the symbols that the prophet Zechariah had said a king would enter into Zion who would banish war from the land! Those that rallied around this procession would have thrilled to the signs that this may be the king who would lead them to reclaim their land and banish the occupying Romans. But days later their hopes are dashed, and this king is tried for sedition and crucified. All is surely lost. Certainly, even the most faithful followers will cower behind closed doors fearing punishment and grieving their teacher and hoped for Messiah’s death.
No wonder the disciples didn’t want to go to Jerusalem. It was as much a hotbed then as it is today. It seems to me Palm Sunday is all about choosing. It is the choice we are called to make to join the dream of a world not yet fully here. It is the choice to seek the glimpse of the divine in the everyday and to adore, protect, nurture and share. It is the choice to choose life and the ways that make for life for everyone not simply for the few. It is the choice to be grateful to be last and encourage those who have less to go before us. It is to choose that we are emptied out and ready for God’s way.
Remember the political context:
Some in Israel wanted to rebel against Rome, and they had, and they would do so again in the future. Others preferred to keep their heads down and try to live their lives as peacefully as possible. And most people were somewhere in between the extremes.
They weren’t satisfied with the way things were going at all, but they also weren’t about to take up arms against the greatest military power in the world at the time.
I like this from a sermon I read this week:
“We still look for the one who will save the people. We put our hopes in all kinds of people, things, and programs. We yearn for the thing that will take us from difficulty to freedom, from sickness to health, and from death to life.
God, save the people.
Today, let us join the world in running after Jesus. Let us grip the palms in our hands and imagine what it must have been like to be there, to see him, to invest our tired hope in him.
Let us remember that we are not the first to fear, the first to suffer, the first to want better things for ourselves and our families. We are not the first to despair or the first to offer our tired hope up to the one who might save us.
Beloved, the story of Jesus is our story, and here, we get to live through it again together. Let us, just this once, forget that we know the ending.
Let us invest our tired hope in the one who rides on a donkey. Let us dare to imagine that he might be the one to take us from death into life.”
What if Jesus had avoided Jerusalem and a cross? Would we be here today? What if Jesus wanted it easy?
I love this meditation sent to me:
From today, either individually or together, we will journey to the upper room, where fears will be shared, and feet will be washed,and a meal will be broken and poured for us.
And then, as it always does, on Good Friday the worst will happen.
Hope is crushed. Love is laid quiet.
Friends, forget for a moment that you know the ending. When love is laid quiet in our own lives, we allow ourselves to mourn that the worst has happened.
From the tomb, who knows where love and hope could take us?
God, save the people.
Love comes to us today riding on a donkey. Let us greet him with palms and songs. And then let us once again journey with him from death into life.
May we encounter the holy this week, and may we find our tired hope refreshed.
Just having bunnies and chickens and spring – an oversight on our part – or a deliberate try to get out of the hard journey we often have to take?
To choose the Kingdom over the Empire is to choose the Way of the cross and the one who died on a cross. It is a demanding way. It is also the way of enjoying eating, drinking and dancing with those who are on the outskirts of the city. It is also the way of foolish wisdom and deep peace more than security and certainty. It is the way of love over hate, hope over fear, and life over death. Jesus enters the city and asks us what will you choose? Stick with me or turn on me?
Loving God,
you rode a donkey and came in peace,
humbled yourself and gave yourself for us.
We confess our lack of humility.
As you entered Jerusalem,
the crowds shouted, “Hosanna: Save us now!”
On Good Friday they shouted, “Crucify!”
We confess our praise is often empty.
We sing Hosanna but cry Crucify.
As the crowd laid their palms in front of you
you took the way of God: you took no glory for yourself.
We confess that we want to be accepted and take the easy way.
We do not stay true to your will.
Forgive us, Lord, and help us to follow in the way of obedience. Amen.
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