Palm Sunday always bothers me – it moves too quickly from the joyful, triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the sorrowful, dumbfounding ordeal of the trial and the crucifixion – how are we supposed to move between those extremes of emotions so quickly? How does one fall from grace so quickly. But it happens all the time – all it takes is making one mistake – look at the number of movie stars or politicians who are on top of the world one day and fallen from grace the next.
In his book, Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis talks about finding joy in a small toy garden made of sticks in a biscuit tin. For Lewis, joy is not fun or happy times when things are going right, but an instant when you see beyond the thing in front of you and receive a glimpse of some greater truth beyond the thing itself. For Lewis, it was not the sticks, dried leaves and dirt of the toy garden that caught his imagination, but a yearning or longing - a momentary vision of something far more desirable. The crucifixion of Jesus is something like that – for it points to a far greater truth, that if we understood the depth of love involved in that one voluntary act, we would be humbled, brought to our knees by the knowledge.
That’s what our second lesson is about. Christ Jesus had equal status with God, but he didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to that status no matter what and he never exploited it - instead he took the form of a human, and made himself obedient unto God. So many people today feel the need to make sure that everyone know who they are and what they have done to deserve honor or power, or attention. That seems to be part of human nature, but Paul warns us against the temptation to boast.
We must remind ourselves that we must suffer with Christ in order to be raised with him to newness of life. As much as we would like to skip the whole crucifixion and dying part of the story and go directly to the resurrection, it is the dying part that is most important. Without the death of Jesus, there would be no resurrection, no Easter Sunday, no churches, no Christians…
It’s not what we do that saves us, no decision we make (other than to follow Jesus), no good deed we do, will bring us that saving grace – only this gift of Jesus – the gift of his life given for us, so that we might live.
One year, during a Lenten program, my congregation was challenged to a new idea of what it might mean to suffer – and that was to carry a burden for something. That year during Lent, I carried an emotional burden that helped me understand the very real emotional pain some people suffer. The next year I carried a physical burden of a broken wrist and I still have the cast that the kids of my congregation gladly decorated with colored pens on Easter morning.
Holy week is most important for us, because it gives us hope – hope that after the pain and agony of our life, we too might find resurrection.
There is a story told about the factory worker who bought a single lottery ticket every Sunday and waited all week for the drawing on Saturday night. When asked why she wasted her money like that, she answered, “One dollar is not too much to pay for a week of hope.” That is what this week is about – it is a week of hope – knowing that resurrection follows the pain and suffering.
There’s a song –
Helping you go was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,
Watching you walk to a place of pain broke my heart in two –
The fragrance of you lingers with me after you’re gone;
the words that you spoke, and the way that you laugh, and I cry.
But the sun’s gonna shine, just wait and see;
Spring’s gonna come, I can feel it in me, can you?
Life has a way of becoming so real, if you want it to.
You know the thing that you said and the things that you did,
they brought you where you are.
But the sun’s gonna shine, just wait and see.
Spring’s gonna come I can feel it in me, can you?
To find your life, you’ve got to loose you’re life, so you say.
Well, it’s hard to believe, but in your life – I see it working that way.
You know the sun’s gonna shine, just wait and see;
Spring’s gonna come, I can feel it in me, can you….
No matter what we do, or where we go, if we believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that he died for our sins, there is hope at the end of the trial – and resurrection always follows death.
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