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Connections&
March 24, 2002--Palm Sunday
The very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and strewed them on the road. The crowds preceding Jesus and those following kept crying out and saying: "Hosanna to the Son of David... " John 11:1-45
Your attitude must be Christ's: He
emptied himself, taking the form of a slave& he humbled
himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians 2:6-11
After the last hosanna is sung
We begin our Holy Week observance on this Palm Sunday with these branches of palm--rich and green, soft and pliant, yet hearty and strong. They are long-awaited reminders that spring is (almost) here.
But they won't be green and soft for very long. As anyone who has decorated a church on Palm Sunday can tell you, these palms will be faded and brittle, dry and cracking within a couple of days.
These branches we hold are much like our faith--not what our faith should be but what our faith often is. After the hosannas are sung this weekend, we will tuck these palms away near a crucifix or icon where they will stay. Overnight they will become brittle and dry and gnarled and largely forgotten--until sometime next winter when we stick them in a bag and bring them to church to be burned and the residue used to smudge crosses on our heads next Ash Wednesday.
Our faith, our belief in this Jesus, our embracing of his Gospel are like these palms. On holy days, at milestone celebrations of the sacraments, our faith is as rich and green as these palms are today. But when our faith starts to pull at our consciences, when we hear Jesus pointing us to a course we would rather not take, when our pursuit of the American dream demands that we cut a few moral and ethical corners, we may discover that our faith is as brittle and dry and gnarled and forgotten as these palms will be in a few days. Once these palms have been safely tucked away until next Lent, it's business as usual: we return to our hosanna-less lives of struggle and pain and brokenness.
Many of those who wave the palm branches to welcome Jesus in today's Gospel will either be party to his death or stand by silently as he is crucified on Friday. We who wave these branches today won't be party to his death, of course. We will do worse. We will look right past him--like we will these branches within a few days.
CONNECTION: May these palms help us understand what our baptism in the death and resurrection of Jesus demands of us. As we welcome the Christ of victory this Sunday, may we be just as welcoming of the Christ of suffering. As we embrace the Gospel of the Jesus of love, may we also embrace the Gospel of justice, of humility, of selflessness. As we try to imitate Jesus' compassion, may we also be willing to imitate his commitment to reconciliation, and forgiveness. May these palms--whether green or cracked, pliant or gnarled--remind us every day of every season of Christ's promise that despite the many Good Fridays of our lives, Easter morning will always dawn. u
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