Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, April 10, 2022            (click here to read today’s scriptures
The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced
Jesus proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem.
There were those who wondered whether Jesus would come to the city where the leaders wanted him killed. Jesus came. He knew exactly what he was doing.
As he rode along, the people spread their cloaks on the road, and now as he approached the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to praise God aloud with joy. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.”
When I pray those words, sometimes shouting, sometimes whispering, a note of triumph and happiness fills my chest. I imagine music, but there is none. And without the music all of us can hear the birds. And the multitude could hear each other. “Here he comes! Get ready. He is looking right at us. His eyes are full of life! This is Jesus, the man who acts like God on earth. Get ready!”
These folks cannot be still. They might be waking up late sleepers, they might be offending the Pharisees. But Jesus does not shush them.
I tell you, if they keep silent, the very stones will cry out!
Dastardly things are about to happen to this amazing Jesus. Isaiah spoke about him, about the strength of his personality and how he presented himself.
The Lord God has given me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them. Morning after morning he opens my ear that I may hear.
And Isaiah wrote how that wonderful man’s words and actions didn’t seem to matter in the end. The people who praised him forgot their praise, and the spiteful leaders had their way.
I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
Even in the bright sunshine of Palm Sunday … when our grandkids will join hundreds of others for an Easter egg hunt after church, when the children of the people in Jerusalem climbed the trees and scaled the walls to catch a glimpse of the donkey and of Jesus, when some of Jesus’ disciples couldn’t help themselves, jumping up and down in excitement, when so many were so overjoyed to at last get a glimpse of this famous man who healed their grandmothers, their mothers and their children … even then in the sunshine, Jesus occasionally closed his eyes and saw something entirely different.
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? They pierce my hands and feet, I can count all my bones. They divide my garments among themselves.
In this “complexity of suffering” Jesus shares the spotlight with his father. Nothing proud here, nor aloof, nor superficial, just Jesus showing us with his body how God has not abandoned us, even when we abandon him. God loves us in the beginning, and now, and always.
Christ Jesus, in the form of God, emptied himself and took the form of slave. He humbled himself, obedient to the point of death.
How can I open myself, empty myself in imitation of Christ, to know this kind of love from God?
And he took a cup, gave thanks, and said, “Take this and drink. Share it among yourselves. I shall not drink any more of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. Then he took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. “Take this and eat. This is my body.”
(Luke 19, Isaiah 50, Psalm 22, Philippians 2, Luke 22)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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