Palm Sunday

April 9, 2006

The Rev. Dorian McGlannan

 

Today marks the beginning of the most significant week of the Christian calendar. Palm Sunday, with all of its complexity and richness, launches us on the journey of Holy Week. This is it folks – a time when profound spiritual growth can happen within the course of a few days. There is no other such week of total immersion in the Christian faith.

 

On this particular day, our liturgy is full of seeming contradictions. In the beginning of the liturgy, we heard the Palm gospel, the story which tells us of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.  We join with the Jews of Jerusalem in waving palms and shouting hosanna. There is joy in the air. Jesus is a hero. And then there is a dramatic shift as we move into the passion readings. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul tells us that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death on a cross. In Matthew’s version of the passion, Jesus cries out: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” Jesus moves from being a king to being a convict. The crowds go from shouting “Hosanna” to “Crucify him”. These two extreme pictures of Jesus are bookmarked together on this particular Sunday of the church year. What are we to make of this mixed up complex of emotions?

 

There is a solution to this seemingly schizophrenic liturgy and that is that neither liturgy nor life are ever completely one emotion or the other. Many of us have been taught that during Lent we reenact Jesus’ dying and on Easter we reenact his rising. Lent is somber, Easter is joyous.  During Lent we walk around as if we’ve just been told that the stock market crashed and during Easter we sing Alleluias until the word becomes engraved on our hearts. The truth is that neither liturgy nor life are divided that neatly.

 

Palm Sunday receives its liturgical meaning from Easter. Easter is what we call the paschal mystery; the inextricable intertwining of the dying and rising of Jesus.  Lent is not just about Jesus’ dying; Easter is not just about his rising. All of Lent is about the dual reality of Jesus on the cross and Jesus triumphantly risen.  On this day we enter into a week that with growing intensity acknowledges the entire paschal mystery. Not palms or passion but palms and passion. Not a dying Jesus and a risen Jesus but a dying-risen Jesus.  

 

Life mirrors this sentiment. It is never simply sorrow or joy. There is always, even under the most dire of circumstances or the most joyous occasion, an element of both.  I have just read a stunning book called Left to Tell by a woman named Immaculee Ilibagiza. Left to Tell is the story of her life in Rwanda during the 1994 three month killing spree that left over a million, Rwandan Tutsi, dead. During this time of Hutu madness, she and six other women were concealed in a tiny bathroom for 90 days. They could barely move and took turns sitting on each other’s laps. They had to remain in nearly complete silence and exist on food scraps. And yet Immaculee experienced unprecedented spiritual growth during that time. This is a riveting story of resurrection in the midst of death. 

 

In the mystery of the world of human spirit and emotions the interweaving of death and resurrection is ever present. A recently divorced man may shed tears at a wedding. Someone will remember a hysterically funny story during the funeral of someone who died unexpectedly. It is just the way life is. 

 

This twin complex of dying and rising is lived out in all of our liturgies. The Easter Vigil begins with a theology of the tomb and ends with the glory of the Resurrection. Baptisms start with the dying to an old way of life and a rising to a life in Christ. And even on an ordinary Sunday we proclaim that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

 

The spiritual journey is a progression of dyings and risings. We never arrive; we simply go through this cycle of death and resurrection over and over again, growing closer to God with each new life experience. Throughout our lives this journey to Jerusalem is lived out in endless ways not just in liturgy but in the fabric of our being.  In the life that we know on earth, we rise to new life only by dying and letting go. How free we are when we are eventually able to accept these deaths with grace and hope. Grieving a death, any sort of death, is a normal part of the human experience but at some point we move out of the grief into the possibilities of new life. I think of high school graduates at this time of year. They may not be accepted by their first choice college and there is tremendous grief but then they move on to see the possibilities with the place they have been accepted. There are so many deaths in our lives. The good news is that each of them is balanced out by an experience of resurrection. 

 

In quest of an ever-deeper relationship with God, we spend our lives dying to sin and to self. If sin is understood as a broken relationship with God, dying to sin is openness to God’s grace poured into our hearts largely by other people. I felt so inspired by Immaculee’s writing that I could not put her book down. She has lived the dying and rising of Christ in a way that no one should ever have to. To come out of that experience with a heart of forgiveness is nothing short of the miracle of God’s grace. 

 

As we enter into this remarkable week of rich liturgies, I invite you to ponder the deaths and resurrections of your life. Hold them close to you. Let them fill your hearts and your spirit. Let all your dying move into new life. There is no dying that does not offer the possibility of new life. Let us embark on Holy Week with open hearts and spirits ready to be filled.