Wandering Heart: “Songs of loudest praise”
Palm Sunday – March 24, 2024
Reading from the Gospel – John 12:12-16
12 The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors 13 took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hail to the King of Israel!” 14 Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:
15 “Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem. Look, your King is coming, riding on a donkey’s colt.”
16 His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.
Silence
Listen to the voice of the Spirit speaking to the Church. Thanks be to God.
Welcome & Passing the Peace
Welcome! Welcome to this time of worship, this time of remembering how Jesus was greeted upon entering the city of Jerusalem so long ago. Welcome to this time of worship which marks the beginning of the holiest week of the Christian Year. We have enacted once again the waving of palms and the shouting and singing of Hosanna! Even as those songs and shouts echo in our ears, though, we know how this week ends.
I am reminded of the complexity we all bring to our worship times – a mixture of celebration and sorrow, sometimes both at once. No matter what brings you to this place this day, no matter what you bring with you into this space, you are welcome. God welcomes us all in all of our complexity, in all of our contradictions, in all of our wonder and awe.
May the peace of Christ be with you. And also with you. Let us pass the peace to one another.
Message
Why do we reenact this story every year at the start of Holy Week?
[Congregation responded with “to remember” “to recognize that Jesus is king” “tradition”]
As I thought about what we had planned for the start of worship and about this story in all of the Gospels, I genuinely wondered about why we do it. I wonder because although we go through the motions, we don’t ever quite capture the emotion of that story, do we? The crowd was so enthusiastic. And when I look at videos I’ve seen of Palm Sunday processions, inevitably I see some very sad waving of palms, almost embarrassed looks. We just don’t quite get it.
Maybe it’s because we know the rest of the story of the week ahead and how fickle the crowd was in Jerusalem. It seems a little hypocritical or something, doesn’t it? We don’t get how a crowd could be so enthusiastic about Jesus at the beginning of the week, and so ready to cry “crucify him” at the week’s end. Why would we want to commemorate their enthusiasm?
Do you think Jesus knew? Did he realize this crowd who was calling him blessed and waving palms and throwing their cloaks on the road for him to walk on, did he realize they would turn on him?
[The congregation generally agreed he probably did but perhaps he didn’t]
What do you think the disciples thought about all of this? We’ve been following Peter. What must he have thought? Do you think he joined in with the crowd?
[Some thought yes because he always was so quick to jump in]
He had to have been confused, though. Jesus had praised him for saying he was the Messiah, the son of God, but then had rebuked him, had turned on him when he refused to let Jesus say what he did about coming to Jerusalem and dying. I mean, what was happening? Jesus was coming into Jerusalem like the king they all were hoping the Messiah would be.
When we were talking about this in our group on Tuesday, the thought was voiced that maybe Peter would have been shushing the crowd, afraid that they would call attention to Jesus, afraid it would be the wrong kind of attention. This was exactly the kind of thing that would get Jesus killed like he said!
Ok, let’s look at the image for this week. I said I wasn’t going to do this, but I think it would be helpful.
“Then They Remembered” by Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity - Acrylic Painting on Canvas with Digital Drawing
Here is how the artist Lisle Gwynn Garrity interpreted the text. It’s a mirror image of Peter. The image on the left is how he might have looked as the palms were being waved and the shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” could be heard. The artist says this is Peter looking confused. He sort of reminds me of the videos I was telling you about earlier. What is going on? Why are these people waving palms and treating Jesus like he’s the king? Why are we waving these branches like a bunch of fools?
Then up in the top right corner we see a mirror image of Peter. The other night I think we were trying to figure out if his expression was any different in that image, and we kind of decided it doesn’t. The artist says in this mirror image, Peter “stands aghast,” as he looks at the empty tomb and all at once remembers. She was thinking of the verse in the text for today, “His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things [the prophecy] had been written about him.”
I thought that by “mirror image,” the artist meant “turned in the opposite direction,” like seeing yourself in a mirror. Now I’m thinking “mirror image” as in they are the very same. In the image on the left – confusion. In the image on the right (same expression) – awe. So here’s a question from the commentary for this text: What is the difference between confusion and awe? And the followup question: Can they coexist?
[Congregation responded that “With confusion you don’t know what is going on, with awe you do” “Confusion is seeing something and not understanding what you’re seeing, awe is seeing something and not understanding what it means”]
So maybe, just maybe, we reenact this story every year to remind ourselves that confusion and awe are very closely related. Perhaps we are filled with the confusion the disciples must have felt when Jesus entered Jerusalem to shouts of acclamation and the welcome of a king. Perhaps we are filled with the awe the crowd (and maybe the disciples) must have experienced as they welcomed Jesus, this rabbi who worked miracles of healing and multiplying loaves and fishes to fee crowds and who raised people from the dead. Perhaps he was the king they were hoping for.
And maybe we remember the rest of the story and feel the confusion of the crowd and the disciples as Pilate asks what he should do with this man who was not exactly the usurper he had been led to believe he was. Perhaps they got swept up in the moment and the fear that they might be seen as collaborators in a movement to make this Jesus their king. Certainly that is what we will see with Peter (that’s a preview for one of the stations on Friday).
And perhaps we remember what comes next – the empty tomb, the fear and then awe of the women who came to the tomb to cleanse Jesus’ body and to prepare it for the burial they couldn’t do on the Sabbath, the confusion of the men when they told them about what had happened.
Confusion…awe…they are all intertwined in this story. Look at Peter …confusion (on the left)…awe (on the right)… awe (on the left)… confusion (on the right). Emotions mirrored in this image. Emotions mirrored in us.
This is the story of Holy Week. This is our story. Join me as we journey to the cross.
Pray with me:
God who journeys with us, as we travel from confusion to awe and back again, remind us that Jesus traveled this road before us and invites us to enter this dark path with him again. May we learn from this darkness. May we see in it our own darkness. May we also be reminded this way of darkness takes us to the dawn of Resurrection morning. Amen.
An Invitation to Praise
Anna read “Courage,” the poem of the week, for us earlier. It ended like this:
To speak the truth of your heart takes courage.
It always has.
But please,
summon your courage,
join the parade,
and speak with conviction.
For God has been saying to the world since day one:
I love you.
What is your response?[from the poem by Rev. Sarah Speed]
The crowd on the road into Jerusalem spoke with conviction. They knew that Jesus was indeed “the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” Do you believe Jesus came in the name of the Lord to speak truth, to show us who God really is, to love as God loves and has since day one? God keeps saying I love you. Is it time for you to say it back? What is your response today? As we sing, set aside your confusion, set aside even your awe, and respond to the one who came in God’s name, the one who comes to show us how to love again and again.