In the Anglican tradition I grew up in, the Passion Reading was sung on Palm Sunday during the morning Eucharist. There was never felt to be need for a sermon after that and the message was reinforced by the symbolism of the Palm Crosses and the Easter garden. If, then, you have imagined Palm Crosses and have read the Gospels and don’t feel you need any more I quite understand. Silence is golden and thank you for reading this far.
But if you would like more….
A Jewish man was sitting quietly at home one day when his phone rang.It was his medical student son.’I hope you don’t mind dad but I’ve decide to become a Christian’. ‘Of course I don’t mind’ said his father, but, on putting the phone down, he did feel a little confused and unsure of what to do. So he went to his Rabbi for advice.
‘Funny you should say that’ the Rabbi said ‘the same thing happened to me a couple of years ago; my son became a Christian as well. I didn’t know what to do either, so I prayed and asked God for guidance’. ‘And did you get a reply’ said the man eagerly.
‘Oh yes’ said the Rabbi, ‘God said ‘funny you should say that…….’
Perhaps not the most precise theology but it introduces today’s focus which is squarely on the Son of God. Jesus knows, as he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, that this is what the Son of God must do. He knows how easily swayed the crowds are, he knows that the authorities can never tolerate his message of love, he knows that he is alone in the hubbub, and he knows that alone, but for a few, he will die.
And we know that, had we been there that Passover week, we would have been no better than the people in Jerusalem who ask ‘Who is this’?
We are, whether we like it or not, herd animals. We live in vast herds and react as creatures in a herd do. Currently at home we are, I say we but I’m not really very good, doing a 1000 piece jigsaw of a meadow full of cats-I would think at least a hundred, superimposed. And this is deeply strange. You would get a hundred people in a meadow, you might get a hundred dogs, but never in real life a hundred cats.
Herds are not all bad. Anyone who has seen Ice Age (the 20th Century Fox film) will recall that when Manny the mammoth (it’s not a grownups film) saves Diego the sabre toothed tiger at great personal risk, the tiger is very surprised and asks ‘why’. The mammoth says ‘it’s what you do in a herd’. I think this is profound despite, or because of, its target audience. And we can see that the present acts of kindness and generosity are also what people do in a herd.
Yet herds have hierarchies, influencers, enforcers and a desire to do what the next man is doing. Jesus knows this and loves the vicious Good Friday mob as much as the Palm Sunday cheerleaders. That is you and me.
We are Peter too, the disciples, the accusers and the smiters; maybe even Judas the betrayer, yet Jesus, the man alone, loves us. We see that that love of God, in a human being, was tested beyond all knowing on Good Friday but still he could say ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do’.
We are living through a highly charged time in a world as excitable as the first century pressure cooker of Jerusalem, in Passover week and in a police state.
Yet still and quiet, gentle and alone, in the middle of our turmoil Jesus stands, now as then. Today we see him on a donkey, this week we will see him die, next Sunday we will see him rise in glory; everyday we must see him as our Saviour, and as a friend holding out his hand.
And if the resolution of so many things-our present troubles, our return to normal life, the coming of the Kingdom, seem so far off we have our Bible and hymns of hope to sing. We, like the Rabbi, can talk to God in prayer. And much on my mind recently has been something you might find trivial. There’s a song from 1970 called ‘Seems Like A Long Time’; you might know it or be able to find it.
The first verse goes:
Night time is only the other side of daytime,
But if you’ve ever waited for the sun,
You know what it’s like to wish daytime would come,
Don’t it seem like a long time, seem like a long time, seem like a long, long time.
(Ted Anderson,Beaver Music)
Daylight will come.
Amen