A Symphony of Palms

This upcoming Sunday is Palm Sunday. It is the official beginning of Holy Week and our final move towards Easter. The text itself is the celebration of Jesus the Messiah making his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He is honored like a king with people singing and shouting for joy while laying their coats on the ground for his colt to walk on (as we are in Luke this year Palms are conspicuously absent). The thing that strikes me this year is how much imagery and illusion are wound up in the Bible. In our reading for this week the author of Luke, and Jesus make multiple references to other parts of faith and the Bible. There are references to Psalms, the Hallel prayers, 2 Samuel, 1  and 2 Kings, and the prophets Zecharia and Habakkuk. It is a good reminder as any that the Bible rarely just “says” things. Instead it is more like a symphony or a jazz band. It plays things, with melodies and harmonies that mingle and support one another. Riffs that build off themes previously started earlier in the piece and adapted for the now. It has sonatas and fugues and canons that build on themes like lament and justice and love or, in the case of this Sunday, on celebration. The celebration of a King come to claim his crown. Jesus comes in not like his Roman counterpart Pilate who would have shown up with glitz and gold and military might but instead on the back of a beast of burden with people who had nothing to give but the cloaks off their back. Not as a conquering hero but as a suffering servant ready to give up his life for the life of the world. So this week before we get to the grief of the cross or the triumph of the stone rolled away let us celebrate, and add our own instruments to the cacophony of praise surrounding the one true King.

Amen,

Pastor Corey