April 5

Palm Sunday 

Gospel: Mark 11 

You hardly know where to let your eye linger this day, what part of the story to step into and stay awhile. What are we to do with this holy day that is so textured and complex...so packed...that it has two names: "The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday." In church, we begin with excitement, pomp and circumstance: the palm procession - whether grand and winding down the block, or quiet and left to the imagination and hearing the scripture - tends to feel like a not-so-well organized victory parade, and that probably captures the mood in Jerusalem when Jesus came riding in. But quickly, the mood changes as the Passion is read, and we want to cover the children's ears as our "Hosannas! Save us!" turn to "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

What we do this day, together in church, is enter into the very heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some biblical scholars say, without much exaggeration, that the Passion narratives ARE the Gospel, and everything else is prelude. The story of Jesus' life speeds by in all four Gospels, until you get to the entry into Jerusalem and the events we remember in Holy Week. Then, hours are noted, and places, and Jesus' movements in the span of a day. Pay attention, look, listen, we're being told. If you want to know Jesus, you have to feed on this story. Without the passion, none of the rest of the things we hear about Jesus doesn't matter, doesn't make any sense.

So we need to not just hear it, but to enter into it. Your church may or may not mark the days of Holy Week with special services. If it does, please - for Christ's sake, for your sake - get there and worship. Whether it does or doesn't, make time to read, and re-read, the Passion story (Mark is this year's Gospel. Start with chapter 11.) Pay attention to where your eye lingers, where you want to stay and what makes you want to cry or run away.

Palm Sunday and the days to come are not just about remembering long ago and far away, but about seeking and discovering and awaiting the ways of our Lord's coming in our time and in our places. As Jesus entered the walled city of Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, so now, he approaches us, our well-defended lives, and seek's entry, desiring nothing so much as to restore us to God and lead us to life.

And blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord.