Palm Sunday

The Bittersweet Truth of Palm Sunday

March 31, 2015 By Michelle 7 Comments

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After church on Sunday Rowan asked me if Palm Sunday was a happy day or a sad day. I understand his confusion. I sort of feel the same way.

On one hand, there’s a feeling of celebration and joy in the air. We wave our palm branches exuberantly over our heads; we shout “Hosanna! Hosanna!” There’s a palpable feeling of anticipation and expectance as we hear about Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. And of course, we, unlike the Israelites, have the benefit of knowing how the story turns out. We know Jesus’ entrance was indeed triumphant, though not in the way everyone first imagined.

That’s pretty much how I explained it to Rowan. I told him Palm Sunday is the official beginning of Holy Week, and that because we know about Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday, we look forward to that day of celebration and thanksgiving with hopeful anticipation.

But I also told Rowan that sometimes we’re not much different than those ancient Israelites who draped their garments on the dirt road and shouted “Hosanna!” as Jesus rode into the city on the back of a humble donkey. Sometimes we have very clear expectations of how we think Jesus should work in our lives, and we quickly do an about-face when our expectations aren’t met exactly the way we imagined and hoped.

Like the Israelites, not only do we expect Jesus to save us, we expect him to save us in the way we think is best.

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I’ve been living the reality of Palm Sunday in real time these last few months. Time and time again I’ve planned out exactly how God was going to redeem my situation (A new publisher! A better book proposal! An unexpected book deal! A new job I’ll love even more than book writing!), and time and time again I’ve been left with my mouth agape and my hopes dashed when The Plan as I had envisioned it didn’t materialize.

I’m learning, though, I really am…albeit slowly. I’m learning the faith and trust to keep shouting, “Hosanna!” — “God, save me!” — even when his plan doesn’t seem to remotely resemble mine. Even when I don’t see his plan at all. I’m learning the faith and trust to keep waving my palm branch, even as my arm grows tired. I’m learning the faith and trust to keep laying my garments down in the road, even when I can’t see the way through the dust and the grit.

Maybe it’s because I have the benefit of hindsight. Maybe it’s because I can look back at the mountains and valleys and the twists and turns of my life up to this point and see with my own eyes how God has worked his good, often in the most unexpected, unanticipated ways. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen evidence, strong and clear, of the goodness of the Lord, not only in the land of the living, but in my very own land and my very own life.

Maybe it’s because I know how the Holy Week story turns out, and I believe it. Jesus was indeed crucified, died and was buried. But he also comes again.

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Nature Itself Mourns

March 25, 2013 By Michelle 30 Comments

When Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph, he no longer deflects the Pharisees from his true identity. Prior to this moment, he has responded to them with questions of his own or answers so deft that they confuse and frustrate the Pharisees. Now, however, Jesus speaks in direct language that he knows will accelerate the process of his persecution and crucifixion.

The authorities want him to either renounce the crowd’s suggestions that he is the Messiah or to acknowledge it and open himself up to a charge of blasphemy. Jesus’ response goes well beyond the acknowledgment that he is a king. In saying that “the stones would burst into cheers” (Luke 19:40) if the people could not, Jesus shows that his authority transcends that of earthly kings. Nature itself, fallen and broken along with humanity, feels its time of liberation at hand.

The statement also offers an ironic foreshadowing of the abandonment and crucifixion. The people, who could not contain their enthusiasm when Jesus arrived as a potential political liberator, evaporate when he is arrested and humiliated. When Jesus finally breathes his last on the cross, darkness covers the land. Nature itself mourns. The Gospel of Matthew, in a parallel with the image of stones celebrating Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, notes that “the earth shook and the rocks were split” when Jesus dies. Both accounts suggest that nature stands ready to respond to the command of God, to reflect the mood of its creator, while people will only be obedient to their own interests.

Lord, as we celebrate the entry of Jesus into human history, remind us to be on guard against fair-weather faith. Help us to be obedient to your will, celebrating your triumph regardless of the consequences. Amen.

{This devotion was written by my husband Brad for our church’s Lenten devotional booklet. Isn’t he such an eloquent writer?! Thank you for patience and grace as I catch up writing and whatnot. And thank you, too, for your prayers and warm thoughts regarding my talk this past weekend – it went well … and I am so relieved that it’s done!}

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Betrayal

April 2, 2012 By Michelle 57 Comments

As a kid I had a love-hate attitude toward Palm Sunday.

What I loved were the palms themselves, the perfect instrument for tickling my sister’s nose, or, depending on my mood, jabbing her in the neck. I loved, too, that we’d head over to Nana and Papa’s house after Mass, where we’d eat chocolate-frosted donuts from Donut Dip and watch my grandfather weave the supple yellow-green fronds into crosses.

The part of Palm Sunday I hated was the Mass itself, because we read the dreaded Passion, the interminable story of Jesus’ crucifixion. It was long and boring, and we stood for the entire reading, shifting from foot to foot and leaning heavily on the pew.

I was always shocked to witness my mom repeat the words, “Crucify him. Crucify him. Give us Barabbus instead,” with the rest of the congregation. “How could she?” I’d think, horrified by what I perceived as my mother’s betrayal of Jesus. I refused to speak my required part, clamping my lips tight when we got to the courtroom scene, convinced that I was the only honorable Catholic in the bunch.

Part of me hasn’t entirely abandoned that self-righteousness, even thirty years later. When I read the scene in which Jesus rides in to Jerusalem on the donkey, the bystanders laying palm branches at his feet and singing his praises in joyful expectation, I’m unnerved by the disparity between this triumphant entrance and the violence and abuse that quickly follows.

“How could they dismiss him so easily?” I wonder. “How could they turn against him so quickly?”

I’d like to think I wouldn’t have reacted the same way. I’d like to think, just as I refused to condemn Jesus when we performed the Passion in Mass as a kid, that I would have been one of his few, loyal followers until the bitter end.

But I’m kidding myself.

Sometimes God doesn’t act or respond the way I want him to, or the way I expect him to. Sometimes I wonder why he’s not changing a particular situation in my life, or not answering a specific prayer. Sometimes I get angry, frustrated or disappointed with God. My trust in him falters; my faith wavers. I turn my back against him.

Even today, two thousand years later, even when I know how the story ends, I’m still capable of betraying Jesus. I’m still capable of turning from praise to protest. My crucifying may be metaphorical, my abandonment may occur in my heart, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

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Palm Sunday

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