Palm Sunday

Luke 19:28-40

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29    

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem sends a powerful message to the crowd.  It is a quotation – an unmistakable visual reference to a beloved passage from Holy Scripture.   By entering Jerusalem riding on the back of a donkey colt, Jesus puts the crowd in mind of Zechariah 9.9.  It reads “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  The manner of his entry into the city recalls hope and memory making it present reality.  God’s anointed, Israel’s liberator has arrived to herald the coming of God’s kingdom.

          The joy that they feel escalates the already heightened emotions coursing through Jerusalem as its citizens and visitors prepare to celebrate the Passover.  The festival’s focus on Israel’s original great liberation from captivity generates anxiety among the authorities who will have peace and order at all costs.  There are too many people, too much energy, too many hopes, dreams and memories.  Jesus iconic entry into the city further escalates the emotion.  The crowd shouts with joy.  A few among them try to stop what is happening; to contain the crowd before it gets out of control.

          The crowd is unaware of what is to come in the next few days.  Like the Israelites who followed Moses out of captivity in Babylon, they will pass through a time of fear and chaos that will echo the story of their ancestors’ passage through the Red Sea.  They will come to know the full and terrible measure of their own cowardice.  They will argue against what it happening, but they will not stop it from happening.  Once the crisis is past, they will, like their ancestors, experience a time of waiting, uncertainty - wondering what it all meant, or if it meant anything.  And like those who came before them, they will ultimately find meaning in their encounter with the divine made human.  They will shape and interpret it and pass the meaning they make of it on to the generations that come after them.

          As we enter into this week that tests our faith, challenges our complacency and puts all our own weakness and cowardice before our eyes, we are reminded again that throughout all of the pain, terror and sorrow of the story we begin to make real and present on this day, God who was made flesh as one of us continues to be in our midst.  Through the events of Holy Week, God gathers in violence, injustice, fear, failure and death, encompassing, fulfilling and transforming them and us in divine love.