With each passing year, I have found that Palm Sunday touches me deeply, body and soul. As Christ enters through the gates of Jerusalem to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies, riding on the foal of an ass, the crowds gather along the way, strewing palm branches to honor him.
The glory of Palm Sunday is that we ride with him, through our own gates into the city of Jerusalem, for we believe his promises.
And with each passing year, I wonder at the Gospel for today. It is not Matthew’s account of Christ’s entry (which we heard on the First Sunday in Advent), but Matthew’s account of Christ’s trial and crucifixion.
But instead of hearing about the entry into Jerusalem today, we act out the story, waving our palms and processing around the church, singing “All glory, laud, and honor/ To thee, Redeemer, King!/ To whom the lips of children/ Made sweet hosannas ring!” Often, the procession follows the cross into the neighborhood, then returns to the church’s closed front door. The leader knocks, and the door is opened. We enter.
We sing the good news of salvation, that our King has come, as prophesied (Zechariah 9:9). Salvation? Saved from what? From the effects of sin, death. We ride with our King who holds us close on our own journey on Earth, so that we may enter the gates of the New Jerusalem in Heaven. Today we acted out our own life journey in time.
It has been said that Christian time is linear time, comprising past, present, and future. We do not go in circles, or stay in one place. We are not reincarnated. We were and are created to create, to use the gifts given by our Creator to magnify beauty, truth, and goodness. We learn in time what virtues to don and what sins to deny. We learn what is lawful and what is not lawful, what is moral and what is immoral, in God’s sight. In this way we travel the path to Jerusalem. In this way, when we knock on the gates, they will open for us.
We are told the way is narrow, and we must be small to enter, and I’ve often thought this is a clue to the necessary need for humility, to see outside ourselves, to not be drowned in the quicksand of self and pride. For if we cannot see outside our own personal universe, we are blind to the love of God. So we confess where we have sinned, are absolved, and are redeemed. We return to the path of humility for we have repented.
And in the end, at the closing of our days, it will be the love of God that opens the gates. It will be the love of God that teaches us the path to take. It will be the love of God that reveals his love shining through others, or not, revealing how each one of us is infinitely unique and beloved by him. This is what Christians celebrate, as they ride with Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, through the gates of Jerusalem, singing songs of praise.
This coming Holy Week and the victory of Easter resurrection are the heart of Christianity, and to observe these days as the Church has done for centuries, is to hear the other Gospel accounts, those written by Mark (Monday and Tuesday), Luke (Wednesday and Thursday), and John (Friday).
Today we enter the gates of Holy Week, humbly alongside Our Lord. We journey with him in his last days on Earth, to understand better who he is and who we are. There will be moneychanger tables overturned. There will be a last Seder supper in which the passing over of death in Egypt is remembered, and Christ becomes the fourth cup, offering himself in the bread and wine. There will be anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, betrayal, trial, and the Way of the Cross. There will be crucifixion, death, and burial in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb.
The women will weep and the disciples will scatter, but as foretold, there will be resurrection on Easter morning.
And we will rise too. With him.
Christine Sunderland
Christine Sunderland 