Archive for Palm Sunday

Couldn’t keep it to myself

April 14, 2015 / / One comment
Life of Christ Visualized: no.2053 1943 Photo: VCU Libraries

Life of Christ Visualized: no.2053 1943
Image: VCU Libraries

 

As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

 Luke 19:37-40

 

I said I wasn’t gonna tell nobody, but I couldn’t keep it to myself…
what the Lord has done for me.
You oughta been there when He saved my soul.
That Sunday morning when He put my name on the roll.
I started walking, started talking, started singing, started shouting
about what the Lord has done for me. 

–Professor Alex Bradford

Category: African-American, blessings, Easter, Palm Sunday, witness, worship /

The most difficult Sunday

April 13, 2014 / / 3 comments
© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons CC-BY-SA

Photo © BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons
CC-BY-SA

 

The older I get, the harder it is to haul myself out of the house and into a pew on Palm Sunday. It’s not that I’m opposed to celebrating the triumphal entry or going outside and marching around waving palms in broad daylight on city streets. No. I’m fine with all of that, and I actually enjoy the pageantry.

But as the years accumulate behind me, all that glory, laud, and honor starts to feel a little hollow on Palm Sunday, because you know that this is not going to end well. After the palms comes the Passion narrative. In less than an hour people are going to be shouting “Crucify him!” and there will be machinations and treachery and just plain human meanness and weakness. The cruelty won’t even stop once they’ve got him on the cross. The soldiers, the passersby, and the thieves crucified beside Jesus taunt him.  It’s a truly wrenching service in which a joyful crowd turns into an vicious mob, Barabbas is set free and Jesus dies. And it all happens so quickly.

For me, Palm Sunday is one of the most depressing Sundays of the year. The story confirms most of the worst of what we know to be true about humanity. It rings uncomfortably true.

So why go? Why not just skip it this year?

Because I don’t want to be one of those people who would let Jesus go to Jerusalem by himself. Because I can’t say “What a friend we have in Jesus” if I’m not willing to be a friend. Because being sad and uncomfortable is a small thing in comparison to the sacrifice and the gift.

 

What language shall I borrow
To thank thee, dearest Friend,
For this thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me thine for ever;
And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
Outlive my love to thee.

 

Category: Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Passion, worship /
 
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