A Palm Sunday Reflection – based on John 12: 1-19 (Please Read)
I love Palm Sunday in Church. I always have. We would normally be gathering in a crowd this Palm Sunday. We should be together in our spacious Sion sanctuary re-enacting again the calls and the cries and the choruses of the crowd – we should be there to acclaim the king, we should be waving our ‘Jen-fashioned’ palm branches and spreading our imaginary cloaks before Him who entered the cauldron of the city sat astride a donkey.
Circumstances have conspired to truly make ‘two’s company and three’s a crowd’ a reality in 2020- such that we will (for however long it takes) have to be God’s people from a distance. But that distance is only physical. This is no bar to worship. We can still worship God together and singly.
In fact that’s the way worship is – individual, corporate, vertical (between the LORD and I) and horizontal - between us (the church). Easter will be different this year. But, however we find ourselves constituted, we still come to the Father through Jesus the Son in the power of the Spirit – and give Him (God) the glory –great things he has done!
If you gather in any crowd you are bound to join (if not meet) all kinds of folk. I well remember the excitement and the expectation that surrounded the historic election and inauguration of Barak Obama, the first African-American President of the USA. He was welcomed by many as a hero. In a matter of weeks the economy collapsed and it became apparent that the journey which began in a crowd with cheers of, “Yes we can” would get very tough and soon be characterised by jeers of disappointment and hostility and cries – “No, he can’t!”
Some were there in the crowd for the festivities. Some were there hoping to see Obama meet their expectations and turn things around. Some were there (die-hards) to be with the man they loved and would follow whatever the economic climate…
Jesus knew all about crowds, too. They were a feature of his ministry of teaching, preaching and healing that large crowds would gather around him. And why not? It must have been amazing to see him and hear him, perhaps to get close to him. It must have been amazing, I suppose, simply to say, “I was there…” to say, ‘I witnessed the miracles…’
Crowds can be exciting; it can be exciting to be there – in the crowd that grows with that growing sense of anticipation, anxiety, the adrenaline that flows, the heart that pounds in happy expectation. You are part of something bigger than you; a strange kind of “electricity” that both connects and inspires the crowd to move and breathe almost as one - and all is well…
And then suddenly it is as if the atmosphere shifts. The crowd becomes a less comfortable place – a current of pressing unpredictably, a place of murmuring danger from which the instinct of the individual is to escape.
Like any crowd the huge crowd that greeted Jesus on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem was made up of thousands upon thousands of individuals.
But Jesus was quite different from you and me because he knew the hearts of the individuals (every one of them) who comprised that crowd.
He knew their hearts and minds it made him weep…
He knew those who had come just for the “crack” and the camaraderie and to sing a few songs and sink a few bevies – they came to picnic; “I’ll wave anything if you put it in my hand!” They didn’t really care who He was or if he lived or died…
He knew those who had seen the miracle of the raising of Lazarus or heard about it and wanted to see the magician perform another fancy trick – they came for a religious high. Save us from the boredom and give us a thrill or we’ll look elsewhere for the feel-good factor…
Or those who wanted a God who would give them bread for the body; or a God who’d make it easy and point out the short-cuts…
He knew those who wanted war, the any excuse hooligans in the crowd who wanted the violent coup, a war-steed mount, not some donkey with a peace-maker for a rider…
He knew those who were half-hearted – those (perhaps) who once had a real faith but can (will) only now believe in private, who these days prefer to melt into the anonymity of the crowd, and whisper Hosannas under their breath, while leaning comfortably on the compromise fence…
He knew those who were the power-brokers in the town; those who peered knowingly from the balconies, away from the throng; those who knew full-well who He was and wanted Him dead – lest he hurt their top jobs and their bottom lines…
He knew this “welcoming committee” was largely superficial and ephemeral.
He knew the crowd would soon be whittled down; that the palm fronds, the flags and the festive fripperies would soon be left to litter the ground, like yesterday’s news…
Jesus knew their hearts and minds and it made Him weep:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing…” (Matthew 23: 37)
Overlooking the city after the hoopla, Jesus lamented, “If you, even you, had only recognised on this day the things that make for peace…” (Luke 20:42) How little has changed!
In truth, the crowd (though now in thousands) had long since left Jesus. It was too difficult to follow him. He demanded nothing and yet he asked so much of his followers.
The Pharisees surely exaggerated when they said, “the whole world has gone after him!”
But in the crowd (in the background to the Palm Sunday story) we find one woman, Mary, who has travelled the few miles from Bethany.
She is the woman who spent all that she had on Jesus with expensive perfume to clean and fragrance his feet – not because Jesus had raised her brother Lazarus from the dead but because simply she loved Jesus and would go to the ends of the earth just to be with him – a die-hard, come hell or high water – and whatever people in the crowd might think, whatever the climate, the woman would stay. She thought it was worth it to stay at Jesus’ feet. During these difficult days (where we wonder what to do with our time) we could do worse than waste it, with Mary, at Jesus’ feet…
Mary would wait until the end. But Mary saw the journey through. She was one of the crowds, but not really. She stood at the cross with the other brave women and some men…
When the crowds had dispersed and gone home, I would have probably gone with them. I’d have “died easy”. His best disciples did! I probably would have high-tailed it out of there, picked up my cloak! I would have walked a much more travelled road, the road of least resistance – not the road to Calvary! I prefer cheers, not tears…
Mary was there, not just for the palms but for the passion as well.
What of us this Easter, eh?
Will we follow Him, go after Him, and stay with Him until the end? By God’s grace and one-day-at-a-time, yes we can!
MFR (05/04/20)