I started this post thinking I was going to continue a conversation about suffering I started a week ago. It seemed especially right because yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Zekey’s (my grandson) passing. Also, as someone who suffers with chronic migraines and other ailments, I thought I would share my thoughts about what suffering says about our God and how our suffering can be redemptive. But…
Today we turned our faces toward Jerusalem. Today, we are a part of the crowd who sang as Jesus rode by on a donkey. Today, we add our cloaks, and lay our branches down – to pay homage to a king.
This has been a difficult post to write – I am unsettled about this celebration. It seems naïve and thoughtless. It feels like cheering on the Detroit Lions – this is not going to end well.
In the jubilant cries of Hosanna – there is a plea – Hosanna is not just another hallelujah; it is the cry – Save us! As the crowds were laying down their cloaks and their branches – they were saying to the King of Kings- Be the king we need! Be the One who saves us! I think of those who were in the crowd – the ones who witnessed the raising of Lazarus, the ones who had heard and swarmed toward Bethany. The disciples were in that crowd. And of course, the Pharisees and the enemies of Jesus. A party unlike most parties. The Pharisees rebuked Jesus for the great noise that was being made by the crowd. They were singing and rejoicing over all the mighty works they had seen. But Jesus tells the religious leaders – “if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Lk 19:37). They even rebuked Jesus for the songs sung by children! (Mat. 21:16) Such joy! Joy that should not be silenced. In Luke’s account we hear the Christmas angels’ cry – “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
But… there’s a very real “but” here – because there is great irony, isn’t there? These joyful followers are not there at the end. At least as far as we know. Even his closest friends would be strangers by Friday. Is it any wonder that he wept as he drew near and saw the city?
In some traditions Palm Sunday moves quickly in the liturgy from the crowd’s celebration to the events that will happen over the next seven days. Palm Sunday becomes Passion Sunday – where Scriptures like Psalm 31 and Philippians 2 are read. It seems that our souls would do well to temper that joy with the realities to come. We of course have an advantage over the crowd in our Gospel narratives. We know what happens – our knowledge extends from the Incarnation all the way through to the Resurrection (and beyond of course). And we know just how fickle we will be and how fear will turn our hearts away from the beauty of our Lord – even the beauty of Good Friday.
The entry into the city is charged with irony, and it is about us as fully as it is about the people of ancient Jerusalem… Our faith, too, is fickle; we are the crucifiers of the One whose coming we have called ‘blessed.
Laurence Hull Stookey
These are the texts that are read as the liturgy moves toward the Passion narrative:
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV)
And from Psalm 31:9-12
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my eye wastes away from grief,
my soul and body also.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my misery,
and my bones waste away.
I am the scorn of all my adversaries,
a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me.
I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.
This liturgy… “reminds us that at the moment of what seems to be the height of Jesus’ public acceptance also begins the process of His public betrayal, His public failure, His public abandonment. Only in the mind of God is Jesus any longer a success, it seems.” (The Liturgical Year)
This is what lies ahead on the road to Jerusalem. It quickly becomes the road to Calvary. It seems right to me that we do not forget what lies ahead. We can live in the tension between jubilation and fear. Because next Sunday after all our betrayal of Holy Week, that joy will return to us – and we will see Him, not as the King of Palm Sunday alone – but as the King who triumphed over death; who ushered in a kingdom like no other; a kingdom of the heart -and a kingdom opened up to all the world! Hosanna!