Palm Sunday - March 29

Can You Imagine?
Mark 11:1-11

A big part of what the church offers during Holy Week is the opportunity and the hope that all of us will experience the stories of Holy Week. That we will literally be drawn into the events of Holy Week… find ourselves taking part in the stories. Think about it: We have more “props” in this week’s worship services than in the entire rest of the year. In fact, unless you count the Advent wreath and maybe the crèche, we don’t use any props at any other time of the year. But this week we have palm branches, foot washing, our own Garden of Gethsame, the veneration of the cross… Props intended to invite us to an enacted participation in the stories.

But I find myself wondering if that really happens for many people. I know many parishioners find the special rituals of this week moving and meaningful. But do they really lead you to see and experience yourself in the stories?

I think there are a couple of things that make it difficult for us to experience these stories as though we are actually a part of them. One is that it is a long ways, literally and metaphorically from 21st century northern Illinois to 1st century Jerusalem. It is not easy to travel across the vast distance of time, culture and geography to enter into the stories of Jesus’ last week.

Second, we know how it ends. It’s very difficult to enter into these stories along with those people who were experiencing them as they happened. Today we heard the story of the triumphal entry and the story of the crucifixion.  We know what happens.

For example, the folded palm crosses as one of the props for Palm Sunday. (They are a part of my history in the church; I folded a lot of the ones we have today; but, as many of you know, I mutter about them, too.) They are an odd prop if meant to evoke the original story of Jesus’ triumphal entry. No one in Jerusalem then would have had them. Not just because they didn’t have altar guilds to fold them, but because the cross hadn’t happened yet!

Having said all that… even if the liturgical enactment of these stories is not often effective at literally drawing us into them, perhaps it will spur our imagination. Let us try to imagine… to imagine what it was like for the people who experienced Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Let us try to imagine what the people who were there experienced.

I offer one contemporary analogy, and I don’t mean this irreverently. Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem was like the homecoming parade of a victorious sports team. Our own are returning home in glory. We identify with them. We are a part of a larger, exciting movement. There is a sense of common identity, shared celebration across all sorts of ethnic and economic divisions. They are ours and we are theirs and we share in their glory.

The Son of David has come home in triumph to the city of David! He is ours and we are his, united and sharing in his glory.

Can you imagine feeling that way about Jesus? That enthusiastic identification with him and his movement?

And what did Jesus bring to the people who lined the streets of Jerusalem to greet him? Remember, he did not bring them salvation from their sins. He did not bring 2000+ years of interpretation of the meaning of his death.

He did come bringing God’s solidarity with the socially marginalized, politically oppressed and economically exploited. Can you imagine cheering for someone like that?

For many, though surely not for all of us, it requires a lot of imagination to celebrate someone who brings God’s solidarity to people who are socially marginalized, politically oppressed or economically exploited. But the people who cheered Jesus into Jerusalem were those people. Can you imagine what they celebrated?

And, as Jesus entered Jerusalem, he brought the fruits of his life and ministry. He had taught people about God. His teaching made God real in their lives in new and powerful ways. His very presence with them seemed to instill healing and hope and peace from beyond any resources that this world offers.

Can you imagine being overwhelmingly excited to be in the presence of someone like that? Can you imagine being so excited to see someone who teaches about God that you take time away from work to be there? Can you imagine being so eager to see someone who offers the healing and hope and peace of God that you would travel for days with your family just to cry Hosanna when he passes by?

It’s a pity that today it seems to require imagination to stir up excitement about the coming of Jesus.