Palm Sunday
When I hear that first Gospel that we read for the Palm procession, as it describes Jesus’ glorious entry into Jerusalem with the crowds cheering and waving palms I can’t help but feel optimistic and hopeful that somehow, maybe the story will end differently, and yet all the time I know it is of course a tragedy and ends as all in a literary sense. Judas has already betrayed Jesus and that is the pivotal literary point of the tragedy. It is where hope and optimism shifts into a dead heat express train to tragedy, suffering and death. And, with knowing so little about Judas and what makes him tick it creates a tension that lasts beyond the narrative itself, beyond even the Easter resurrection itself, So we are left asking ourselves, why on earth would Judas do such a thing and betray his Lord, his Savior. Of course that nagging anxious question about Judas is reinforced by so many other smaller betrayals. None of the disciples stayed as true to Jesus as they thought they could or said they would. His closest disciples, Peter, James and John couldn’t even stay awake as he struggled and prayed in the garden. Then later, Peter denied him repeatedly and by the end of the tragic day all of the disciples, except for the women, had deserted him completely.
And so where does that leave us? Will we desert our Lord as well? Well, of course we will.
We’ll flee to the comfort of our lives and slip away to sleep as Jesus is once again scourged and beaten and killed. We do it every time we blindly ignore the continuing injustice that exists in our society and this so-called “Christian” nation. But this week we have at least one choice that could shape our hearts toward a truer fidelity. We can take the time to walk along with Jesus during this Holy Week. I invite you to take some quiet time each day away from the busyness of life, the news of the polarized political environment that we’re all sick of, take time to re-read this passion gospel and simply reflect. We’ll have the ancient service of Tenebrae on We and on Thursday we will come together again and remember Jesus’ institution of the Holy Eucharist, as he kneels to wash the feet of his disciples. Then we will pray the prayers of Good Friday at the darkest time of the tragedy as the veil in the temple is torn in two. And finally we will gather on Sunday to celebrate that glorious resurrection when God will stop death and make the clock of fate run backwards, with bells ringing and a new Easter fire casting light in darkness. No physical separation can stop that.
May God give us the grace to walk the way of the cross this holy week and embrace God’s
passion in our own lives, so that we too, may know the inextinguishable joy of Easter day, not simply as a commemoration of the past, but as a celebration of our own journey. AMEN.
The Rev. Dr. Dennis Campbell
