Hello, friends!
It has been a long time since I have been able to attend to this blog, and I am glad to get back to it. Let's talk about Palm Sunday.
All season long, we have been talking together about Jesus' life and ministry as told in the Gospel of Mark. And since Easter falls on April Fool's Day this year, we have been inspired Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 1:25 when he describes Jesus' life, death, and resurrection:
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
It is the ultimate foolishness, coming into Jerusalem,
knowing all that would happen. And they did know, at least on some level. Back in Mark chapter 10, beginning with verse 32, we read:
They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”
They might not have understood exactly what Jesus was saying here, but they knew enough to be afraid. They knew that the religious authorities opposed him, and that things were getting increasingly tense.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, at around the same time, Pilate is entering Jerusalem at the head of a military procession. Knowing this, it would have been another reason Jesus' followers were afraid. Because this was something that happened every year at Passover, and maybe at other major festivals as well: Pilate and other Roman governors spent
most of the year at Caesarea by the sea, but they came into town every year at
Passover to make a show of force. Jerusalem swelled from 40k people to
something like 200k at Passover, and the people of Israel had a history of
rebellions against Roman rule, so for years governors had arrived in the city
in full military regalia. In their book "The Last Week", John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg describe what the scene may have been like: “...cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons,
banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold…" The
sound of “marching feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the
beating of drums” meant to strike fear into onlookers. And as
Pilate led this fierce regiment into town, he did so with confidence knowing that he was backed up by several
battalions of Rome’s finest garrisoned on the west side of Jerusalem ready to
flood into the city at Pilate’s command.
But on the other side of town, in something like a counter-procession, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, living out the words of the prophet Zechariah:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your King comes to you;
triumphant and victories is he humble and riding on an donkey, on a colt, the
foal of an donkey.” The people, waving palm branches, spreading their cloaks on
the road as the people cried, “Hosanna! Save us!”
No wonder the disciples were afraid. Jesus had told them what
they were walking into, and even if they didn’t fully understand it at the time,
they certainly must have understood by the time he turned over the tables in
the temple as they prepared for this incredibly important festival. It was a festival that celebrated God’s love, forgiveness, and freedom from slavery...and Jesus up-ends their tables, scatters the animals with whips, and accuses the religious leaders of turning God's holy place into a den of thieves and robbers.
It is the ultimate foolishness, isn’t it? For Jesus to enter
Jerusalem this way, knowing what would happen. To subject himself to all that
was coming, to be betrayed, arrested, beaten, and killed. All to convince us,
finally, that the power of God’s love is greater than the love of power. That
the power of God’s love is stronger than all of the forces of evil on earth. To teach us to proclaim with Paul in his letter to the Romans that "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God that
is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
And while Jesus is there in the city these few days before Passover, in sharp contrast to those who are plotting to kill him and those who
are afraid, a woman anoints him with oil in the house of a Pharisee. She is this unnamed woman with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, showing him tenderness and honor. All of the Gospel writers tell this story, so that what Jesus says about it is true: that whenever the Good News is proclaimed, people will tell this story and remember her. And we do. Luke's telling of this story is especially tender: it is in Luke's telling that we hear that the woman is weeping at Jesus' feet, washing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. It is an act not just of honor to Jesus, but of repentance, forgiveness, boldness, and tears of
life-transforming gratitude.
It is a season of contrasts, this one, especially this week that begins with Jesus entering Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. It contrasts peace with war, life with death, love with hate. Christmas comes just after the longest night of the year, as the light just begins to shine a bit brighter and a bit longer than the darkness, and we celebrate the
coming of the Light. At Christmas, we read in John the light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it. Now here, at the beginning
of spring, the light and the darkness are just about equal equal. It looks as though they are equally matched at
this point, and in the Gospel story the
confrontation between the two is at its most intense as we begin this final
week with Jesus. There have been skirmishes before now, confrontations that
have been building in intensity as Jesus insists on healing, compassion, mercy,
forgiveness, peace, hope… and the religious authorities resist. Now, that resistance is at its height. Because
comforting the afflicted always afflicts the comfortable.
This conflict, it's not just happening to Jesus. It is inside us, too, and in our own world.
There is a struggle between the light and darkness inside us
all. We have sins to confront and hurts that need healing, truths to accept
and obstacles to overcome, humility to learn, sacrifices to make, and abundant
life to claim. It is a lifelong spiritual work, to turn away from darkness and
toward the light of Jesus Christ. Stephen Garnaas Holmes, a United Methodist pastor and
poet writes:
Earth
tilts and spins,
turns another face to the sun,
and today, mid-tilt,
we all get the same
light and darkness.For we all are the same, light and darkness mixed. “Hosanna!” and “Crucify!” mingle on our lips.
South and North face into autumn and spring. My repentance looks one way, yours another, to face our darkness, or to live in our light.
It's true, isn't it? And so, as you enter into this difficult week, I encourage you spend it in prayer. Pay close
attention to your own heart. And as you do, as you remember the darkness that
Jesus encountered and what it was made of, and how it acted, consider your own
life and the darkness you need to turn away from. Be encouraged that, as you
grapple with your own repentance, you can rely on the strength of the one even death could
not defeat. We head into a dark time this week, and it is important that we go
there fearlessly…we can do that because even there God is with us, and the
promise of the resurrection is that darkness is never the end of the story. Rely
on the strength of the one who conquered death, the one who loves you beyond
imagining, the one from whom nothing can separate us, the one who knit you
together in your mother’s womb, the one whose way always and only leads to
life.
I hope that you will join us for a beautiful Tenebrae service on Maundy Thursday (March 29) at 7, and the Walk to the Cross on Good Friday (March 30) at noon at Rattlesnake Mountain here in Fallon. And then, I hope that you will join us for an Easter Sunrise service here at Epworth at 7am on Sunday, April 1, and stay for a little breakfast afterward! Or, join us for traditional Easter Sunday worship at 9am that same day, and come early for breakfast. We would love to celebrate this great day with you.
Have a blessed Holy Week.
In the everlasting love of God,
Pastor Dawn
