Palm Sunday Yr C

The King has come, but not quite as expected. He has gone to find a young donkey to ride rather than the proud war horse any coming king ought to ride. Jesus is all too aware of the dangers of being recognized as king when the city is under the control of the Roman emperor. The most difficult and painful part of our journey still lies ahead as we journey together through the dark and fearful places. Yet Jesus’ curious choice of riding on a lowly donkey warns us that this story may not follow quite the usual pattern of the conquering hero. We must stay close and walk with Jesus, listen and watch, for ‘something wonderful’ is about to happen this week.

Something wonderful is about to happen this week, but something wonderful happens only after the pain, sorrow, suffering, alienation and isolation that is being human. That something wonderful can’t be gotten to too quickly, and that something wonderful is a promise. The paradox here for us is that we know the end of the story. You and I know about the resurrection, and often we wish to jump over all of the pain and alienation that is represented by Holy Week to get there. But we just can’t. We need to live in this Holy Week. We need to be on this road with Jesus, who at one moment seems the conquering hero, and the next seems the lowly outcast, we need to stay with Holy Week to really understand and experience Easter Joy.

We cannot jump to the quick fix, we cannot jump over the passion, the torture, the death to get to the resurrection. We must journey with Jesus through it, it is in fact the journey together that brings us to the Easter joy. I don’t think we really can begin to live as Easter people until we have made this journey with Jesus is Holy Week. Without this Holy Week, without the journey with Jesus to the cross, Easter is much more like the plastic eggs that can be crushed underfoot, than it is new life, and Kingdom come.

You all have some at experience at this. I only remind you of the reality of your lives. Many of you have lived this same story. Your story is part of the story of God’s activity in Jesus.

You have experienced the pain and sorrow of losing someone you love. You have accompanied your loved ones through the ravages of chemo and of radiation. You have spent hours at your parent’s bedside, watching and praying while they die, the only thing you are able to do is hold their hand. You have watched loved ones drink themselves to death, or smoke themselves to death, all you could do was pray that they’d quit. You have lost children to estrangement, accident, or suicide.

Some of you have experienced the alienation and isolation of being different; of being the only one whose parents expect you to keep them informed of where you are and who you’re with. Some of you have had the embarrassment of your parents insisting on meeting the parents of the kid whose house the party is at, or the embarrassment of your parents insisting on meeting the parents of the boy or girl you’re going out with. Some of you have been the brunt of jokes and teasing. Some of you may even have been the bully at times, because you just couldn’t figure out how to be with people who are different than you.

Pain, and suffering, isolation and alienation, loneliness.... This is what Jesus experienced during that time from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the time he was nailed on that cross. His friends abandoned him, betrayed him, and denied that they knew him, they also raised swords to protect him. Soldiers beat him, officials mocked him, and none understood him.

He was nailed to a cross and left to die.

The power of Jesus’ story is that it is our story as well. And the Good News is that in the midst of this Mess, a mess sometimes of our making, often not of our making, is that God is with us, and God will create new life out of it.

You know this because you are able to look back on the pain and suffering of the death of a loved one and are able to talk about God being with you, in the people that cared for you, maybe in the reconciliation of a relationship. You know this because as you look on the alienation and isolation of your middle school or high school years, you are able to talk about the teacher, or the coach, or the friend, who reached out to you to pull you out of that isolation. You know this because as you look back on your own recovery from addiction you are able to talk about the people who helped you through it.

This is God in our midst, Jesus Christ in the face of the other. The resurrection that comes after pain, suffering and death.

Oh, we’re not there yet, but we keep getting glimpses.

Our lives are neither neat nor easy. The path is never straight nor evident. In the midst of the struggle, in the midst of the pain, the suffering, the alienation, the isolation, we can hardly see our way clear, we can hardly see our own belly button. But that’s the point. When we stop gazing at our own belly button, and lift our head up to look the other in the eye, we begin to be the person in whom another may see Jesus. We begin to live as Easter people.

But I get ahead of myself again. I have a habit of doing that. Because in the midst of the Mess, comes something wonderful, and I can hardly wait.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.