We always begin Palm Sunday with a first reading: Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Crowds waving palm branches. Laying garments along the way as he rides by. It must have been quite a spectacle to see. The one who has come in the name of the Lord and yet we know the authorities, those in power, were watching. Any disturbance to the pax romana would be dealt with…
Our opening reading has set the scene for what’s to come with the passion story. In Fred Velardi’s stations of the cross:
“In the first Station, "the Stage is Set" for the events that will follow. I did a number of drawings trying to represent Jesus standing before Pilate, but decided on the torn curtain, and the barren stage to represent that this was somewhat of a "show" by the Romans.”
It was a show. The pax romana would be kept. No one would endanger it. No King of the Jews. No Messiah. The stage was set when Jesus road the donkey into Jerusalem.
On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.
That poem (from Mary Oliver) got me thinking about the part that the donkey played, obedience. Did he feel brave? Did he love Jesus? What part will we play in the scene: The obedient donkey. The traitorous Judas. The faithful Mary Magdalene. The denier Peter. The disciple who ran off or the disciple who stood near. The crowd who celebrated his entry or the crowd who yelled Crucify him. The scene is set. We move forward to play our part…
As I pondered the story, I thought of the poem Encounter by Langston Hughes:
I met You on Your way to death,
Though quite by accident
I chose the path I did,
not knowing there You went.
When I heard the hooting mob
I started to turn back
But, curious, I stood my ground
Directly in its track
And sickened suddenly
At its sound,
Yet did not
Turn back.
So loud the mob cried,
Yet so weak,
Like a sick and muffled sea.
On Your head
You had sharp thorns.
You did not look at me—
But on Your back
You carried
My own Misery.
On his way to the cross, Jesus carries your misery, my misery, the world’s misery. Be it the death of children in eastern Ghouta, Syria, or Parkland, FL, or the streets where opioids kill in quiet ways, all of our tears are gathered with Jesus and on that holy cross, Jesus has redeemed the world.
And yet, there is still death. Fear. Violence. The scene that was set long ago, still plays out today. A grim charade that too many experience in their lives. So what will we do? Watch the mob around us or will we muster the courage and the love others just as Jesus had?
To fulfill what Jesus has done on the Sunday of the Pasion, we must play our part to which we are called, but a part that lies beyond the passion story to what we do with our lives in our world today. These words come from the poet Malcolm Guite, and his sonnet for Palm Sunday. Ponder these words:
Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The saviour comes. But will I welcome him?
Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands, get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won. Too soon they’ll find
The challenge, the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune. I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest, and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart, its barricades,
And at the core, the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple. Jesus come
Break my resistance and make me your home.
May Jesus through the Spirit break the resistance in us, so that God may make a home in us and the love of God can redeem the world. Amen.
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