Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday April 2, 2023 (Palm Sunday)
Scripture: John 12:12-19
I want to invite you to imagine what it might have been like to have been there, to have been part of that procession that entered Jerusalem. If it is easier for you to imagine with your eyes closed, then I invite you to close your eyes.
At this time of year in Jerusalem, we are in the middle of the short spring season. The heavy rains of winter have passed, though there might still be some showers, but we haven’t yet come to the hot, dry, dusty days of summer. The wildflowers have started to bloom, and there are poppies blowing wildly in the wind wherever you turn; and the almond trees are blooming, filling the air with their sweetness.
We are just days away from the Passover, the major festival in the Jewish calendar. People have traveled from all over the known world to celebrate the Passover – offering sacrifices in the temple, and sharing in the communal Passover meal as they re-tell the story of how God had helped them to escape from slavery in Egypt.
The streets are crowded – there are normally 40,000 people living in the city, but this week there are 200,000 extra people here. The officials are starting to get nervous with all of these people here. They have heard rumblings of revolt – rumours that there are people who want to overthrow the Roman rulers here in Israel. Tensions are starting to rise, so that any large gathering of people is seen as suspicious.
There is also a rumour going around that something is happening just outside of the gates of the city. There is this preacher and healer and miracle worker named Jesus, from Galilee up there in the north, who has come to Jerusalem in time for the Passover. People are saying that he can cast out demons, that he walks on water, and that he has even brought people back from the dead. They’ve started calling him the Messiah, the anointed one, anointed like our kings in the past were anointed. The rumours say that he is the one who is going to overthrow the Romans, and that he will be our king instead of them.
We make our way slowly to the gates on the eastern side of the city. We have to move slowly because the streets are so full – everywhere you turn there are people – people on foot, people with animals, people selling things, people buying things. It is crowded, noisy, chaotic. A cacophony of languages fills the air from the pilgrims from every corner of the world.
When we leave the gates of the city and start to travel along the road towards Bethany, we can see this Jesus, surrounded by his little band of followers, but the crowd has grown so that there are hundreds of people gathered around, maybe even a thousand people.
It’s almost like this Jesus is organizing a show for us – a bit of street theatre. He’s sent a couple of his followers to find a donkey for him, and now he is riding towards the city gates like a conquering hero… except he is sitting on a donkey instead of a war horse. We can join the parade, and as we go, the crowd is getting noisy. They are shouting and waving palm branches that they had cut from nearby trees.
And then a group of people starts to sing, and they are singing one of the psalms of our people – Psalm 118. It starts with just a small group, but then more and more people join in until it is more like a shout than a song:
Hosanna! Save us!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna! Save us!
I wonder what Jesus is trying to say with this parade? What is his message? What is he trying to accomplish? Usually street theatre is a tool that marginalized groups use to speak truth to power – “Oh, no, you can’t get us in trouble for saying that – it’s just a play!”
It is a celebration for sure, but it doesn’t feel quite right. People are excited that something new is coming. People are confident that this Jesus can save them. People are willing to risk being part of a crowd in a time and a place where that is a dangerous thing to do, just in order to be part of this procession. And yet there is a tension in the air, like something big is coming that we don’t quite understand yet.
I also wonder about the crowds who joined the parade that day. All through this season of Lent, we’ve been reading stories about individual people who encountered Jesus and how they were changed by that encounter, but today we have a whole crowd of people. And I wonder how they were changed by participating in this parade.
I wonder if there were people in the parade that day who became disciples, who joined the group of Jesus’s followers. They don’t have many days left to learn directly from Jesus, but they can learn of his teachings from his other disciples, and then go on to share Jesus’s message with others.
I wonder if there were people who were a part of the parade that day who went home that evening and said to their spouse, “Well, that was fun”; and then never gave it a second thought.
My wonderings also take a more serious bent. We’re told that some people in the crowd that day were part of the crowd that saw Jesus raise his friend Lazarus from the dead; and we’re going to encounter another crowd in just a couple of chapters. I wonder if anyone who was part of the Palm Sunday crowd was also part of the crowd that shouted “Crucify!” outside of Pilate’s palace?
Just as there are multiple faces to the crowd that day, I think that each of us has an opportunity to choose how we will respond when we encounter Jesus. Do we choose to stop and listen to his message, and allow ourselves to be changed by his message, and then go on to be part of his message? Or do we encounter Jesus and hear his message and then file it away under “interesting, but not relevant to me”? Or do we encounter Jesus one day, then turn around and deny him the next day, in our words and in our actions?
For almost 6 weeks now, we have been journeying through the season of Lent, hearing these stories of people who encountered Jesus and how they were changed because of it. Now we are on the threshold of Holy Week. As we journey through the days ahead of us, we are going to encounter tender moment, painful moments, grief-filled moments, fearful moments, empty moments, before we can get to next Sunday and the empty tomb.
As we stay by Jesus’s side all the way to the cross, how do you want to be changed by your journey with Jesus? My prayer for all of us, as we stay close to Jesus this week, is that the Holy Spirit might work in all of our hearts and lives, transforming all of us so that we might be more and more like the one whom we follow. That the faith, the peace, the courage, the love of God that Jesus shows to us might bloom in all of our hearts and our lives. And may it be so. Amen.
“Entry into the City”
John August Swanson
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