It’s not every week that we get to hear so much scripture in church, and that’s too bad. Because what we heard today—both in the liturgy of the palms, and in the liturgy of the passion—tells such a great portion of the story to which we have devoted our lives. There’s something important in that. Hearing a story not just in snippets, but as a steady stream so that we can get a sense—a larger sense—of the story we find ourselves in.
Today’s gospel readings tell us so much about Jesus, about his character, about his mission, and about his understanding of what God is like. The readings today also tell us so much about the world in which Jesus lived, the powers and authorities he stood up against, that were oppressing his people, and from which Jesus came to liberate us.
Today as we shared the reading from Mark’s Gospel, as we participated in the drama, as we put the characters’ words into our own mouths, I found myself getting closer to the reality of this scene as it plays out. I wonder if you had any surprises along the way as you participated in the reading as well.
As I was preparing for today’s service, there was part of me that was tempted to focus solely on the story of Jesus and his triumphal entry. There’s so much joy, so much celebration in this moment. It’s a moment I don’t want to lose. These days, a year into the pandemic and all of its upsets, I want to cling to any moments of joy that present themselves.
The people are excited. Finally and at last, their cries to Yahweh have been heard, their cries for divine deliverance have been answered. Finally and at last, the Messiah is here, and this changes everything.
Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna in the Highest! I can hear the crowds chanting. I can hear myself chanting as a part of the crowd, believing wholeheartedly that this one, this Jesus, this messiah will put an end to the injustice around us, putting everything to rights.
This week I was tempted to focus solely on the story of Jesus and his triumphal entry. Jesus enters Jerusalem to much fanfare from the people. Common folk. Not the religious leaders. Not the political elite. Just regular folk. Regular folk who had been more than a little beat up. A little beat up by the way things were. By an economy that didn’t work for them. By a religious system that kept them traumatized and scared. By a world in which they were not being heard by anyone in power. Until one day, Jesus comes along.
Until one day, Jesus comes along and starts to say such amazing things and to do such wonderful things that ever increasing crowds of people can’t help but follow him. And as they follow, they listen. And as they listen, Jesus tells them, (tells us!) about a Kingdom, a Community, a Reign that is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. He tells these amazing stories about a world and a household and a family unlike any they had ever encountered. He tells the story of a God who will sacrifice everything to be with their people. One who will search after a lost coin, a lost sheep, a lost child, until we are found.
And this comes as good news in a world where people are being trampled, forgotten about, disappeared on the daily. People are being enslaved to debts they can never repay. Hearts and minds are being taken hostage.
And yet what we find in this passage—who we find in this passage—is Jesus. We find Jesus, who comes to show us —in words and embodied action—what this re-membering, searching, loving God is like.
I wonder how these resonates for you today. I wonder if you can see yourself amongst the crowds waving Palm Branches and shouting Hosanna, desperate for liberation from whatever imprisons you. Sometimes I think that these Pandemic times have revealed and exposed the ways in which our way of life—as individuals, as communities, and as a broader society—look nothing like the Freedom we were promised or the Freedom for which we yearn.
It’s into this world with all of its fault-lines and fractures that Jesus steps. It’s into this world that Jesus comes to walk with and amongst the people. It’s into this world that Jesus comes to listen. It’s into this world that Jesus comes to act in solidarity with those who have been knocked down. It’s into this world that Jesus comes to show us what God is like, and to invite us to be a little more like that.
Jesus knows that folks have been knocked down—not just by unfortunate circumstances—but by people and by systems designed to ensure that some have more than enough while the rest struggle daily to get by.
The story we read today. The passage we rehearsed, the characters whose words we took into our own mouths bring us into the heart of what happens when you step in the way of a religious and political machine hellbent on destruction.
All this to say, I was tempted to focus only on the triumphal entry because the rest of the story is just so hard.
The rest of the story sees the crowd shouting Hosanna replaced by a different crowd—a Lynch Mob ready to string Jesus up on a tree. Unwilling to take any more of his lip. Unwilling to take anymore of his stories of how God’s dream for the world is not a dream for the world as it is, but how it ought to be.
And yet, if we stay only in Palm Sunday, if we don’t journey through Holy Week, I don’t know that we can understand the fullness of what God is doing in Jesus. Even though I want to pick and choose, I can’t. I need—we need—to experience this story in its fullness, in its completeness, in its contrasts of joy and despair—not just to see, but to experience what God might be up to in this moment, and in our own lives.
You see, my friends, we cannot get to Easter Resurrection without the abandonment of Maundy Thursday, the searing loss of Good Friday, and the devastating disorientation of Holy Saturday. This is God’s climactic work in our world. And this work comes at a cost for Jesus, and for all we who follow in the way of Jesus. For indeed, the gospels teach us that there is no triumph without suffering. There is no joy without sorrow. There is no simplicity until we reach the other side of complexity. And we are not yet there. Or as a certain children’s story puts it:
Can’t go over it. Can’t go under it. We’ve gotta go through it.
We have to go through it. But here’s the good thing. We don’t have to go through any of this alone. We may be in our own homes, we may be separate because of lockdown and quarantine, but we don’t have to walk this road alone. Because, first and foremost, we walk this road with Jesus. And secondly, we walk this road as members of Christ’s body, right alongside one another.
And we know that when things are tough, we can pick up the phone. And we can send a letter. And we can trade texts and emails. And we can gather online for church. And we can send love to those we know are suffering. And we can share each others’ burdens. And we can pray. Oh can we pray.
And so my friends, as we enter into these Holy Days, may we seek to carry one anothers’ burdens. May we seek Jesus’ accompaniment in prayer. And may we we seek to journey together, and with Jesus on the road marked with suffering, that we might meet him once again on the other side, and feel the burning in our hearts.
