I wonder, how often do we think we know a Bible story, particularly if it is a part of the familiar, great seasons of the church year journeyed each year?  Now, as we enter once more into the unfolding events of Holy Week and the trauma of the Passion of Jesus, we begin with Palm Sunday.  

One of the disruptive effects of engaging with the flow of the Bible narrative broken into chunks for Sunday to Sunday service readings is that the story can become de-sequenced or compressed, or one element can overwhelm another.  It has always seemed to me that Palm Sunday is particularly vulnerable to this.  As we move from the joyful Sunday crowds in the streets to our joy at the mystery and hope of the resurrection on Easter morning we risk sliding too quickly over all the challenge and pain of the intervening days. To counter this, in our Palm Sunday services we engage in both the Liturgy of the Palms and the Liturgy of the Passion, hearing again first of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and then of his intimate meal with his disciples, his betrayal, arrest, abuse, execution and burial.  That is a great deal of happening and emotional turmoil to process as we seek to engage fully with this narrative.  To help us experience the shocking contrast between the joyful entry into Jerusalem and the bleakness of the Passion, this Sunday we will walk that lively procession before coming to hear again the events of Holy Week and solemn celebration of communion.

So, what springs to mind when you think of the action of that first Palm Sunday?  Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a borrowed young donkey? The crowds casting palm branches before him and their acclamation with shouts of hosanna?  Hosanna: both cheering and a cry to God, ‘Lord save us’.  And how, just a few days later, they turned on him?

As we approach Jerusalem with Jesus and journey towards the temple, the Palm Sunday narrative is told a little differently by each gospel writer.  This lectionary year we have been travelling the gospel story with Luke, and so it is Luke’s account of the Palm Sunday events I have been dwelling on this week.

In just twelve verses, Luke gives us an apparently simple summary of seeming triumph, yet which, in the hostile voices of the Pharisees, is also already a portent of trouble.  This seemingly simple account is threaded with references to prophecy of the coming of God’s appointed ruler and saviour of Jerusalem (Zechariah 9:9; Isaiah 62:10-12).  The verse from Psalm 118 within this narrative also tie us into the annual Passover rituals of worship and thanksgiving to God as rescuer of his people (Psalm 118 is one of the psalms sung in procession to the temple as a re-enactment of the journey out of slavery into the promised land). However, this verse also points us back in Luke’s gospel narrative to Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem’s failure to acknowledge him (Luke 13:35) and forward to Jesus’ lament again at Jerusalem’s failure to recognise him as the Prince of Peace, as the Palm Sunday procession approaches Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44). Luke’s twelve-verse account is in no way simple.

I wonder, how often in revisiting Bible narratives, are we surprised and challenged?  This is the essence of Lectio Divina, the contemplative reading and rereading of a passage to discover what stands out for us on this occasion, and to hear something that God is nudging us to dwell on.  Setting aside all the rich scriptural linking, and listening again to just the simple words of the story, here’s what jumped out for me this year: there are no waving palm branches in Luke’s account; there are no hosannas; and the joyful praise is from the multitude of disciples around Jesus, not from the crowds in the street.

Now I’m wondering, what is God using this to say to me?  Perhaps the finger here in Luke is pointed not at fickle crowds or hostile Pharisees, but more directly at the disciples?  Those disciples who, despite all Jesus’ teaching, have their own assumptions about what his victory will look like; those disciples who, at Gethsemane, began to break their promises and melt away.  What assumptions am I imposing on God? How am I breaking my promises to God?  In the rush towards Easter Day and Easter season, and the confident hope of God’s victory and grace, is he reminding me that even so, every day, I need to cry that missing hosanna: praise you, God – and please, Lord, I need you to rescue me and set me straight on my journey to you?

I invite you to take a few moments to read and reread Luke’s Palm Sunday verses and see what jumps out for you.  How is God speaking to you here?

And this week, let’s pray for our priests in this benefice and across this deanery as they relive deeply the wonder and exhaustion of this emotional rollercoaster in serving congregations this Sunday and through Holy Week in the journey towards Easter.

Lucy G

Photo by Brooke Larke on Unsplash.