4th Passiontide
Palm Sunday
Matthew 21: 1-11
And they approached
Jerusalem and came to Bethphage by the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus sent two
disciples ahead and said to them, “Go to the village which you see before you,
and at once you will find a donkey tied there and her foal with her. Untie them
and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord
needs them, and he will let you take them right away.”
This took place to fulfill
what was spoken through the prophet:
‘Say to the daughter of
Zion,
Behold, your king comes to
you in majesty.
Gentle is He, and He rides
on a donkey and on a foal of the beast of burden.’
The disciples went and did
as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the foal, placed
their garments on them, and Jesus sat on them.
Many out of the large
crowd spread their clothes on the road, while others cut branches from the
trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of them and
followed Him shouted:
Hosanna to the Son of
David!
Blessed is he who comes in
the Name and Power of the Lord!
Hosannah in the highest!
[Sing to Him in the highest heights!]
When Jesus entered
Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is he?” The crowds
answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday
 |
| Entry into Jerusalem, Ninetta SombartPalm Sunday |
March 20, 2016
Matthew 21: 1-11
Just before sunrise, one
can sense nature’s mood of anticipation. Light grows to a chorus of birdsong.
Color emerges from gray. And as the sun peaks over the horizon, joy floods the
earth with the light.
In today’s reading the
people greet Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem like a sunrise. But for Christ Jesus
himself, it is a time of sunset. He knows he is entering his demise. He knows
that his time is short. And he knows that his task is great. For he must keep
the light and color of his being unextinguished even as he travels into the
darkness of death, into the depths of the earth.
Sunrise and sunset,
light and dark, life and death – the great polarities will be reunited, made
One, in His being. The great separation that began with the Fall of the human
being, which ushered in sickness and death, will be bridged in Him. But first, his
encounter with the kingdom of darkness, his wrestling with death. His victory
was at that point by no means assured. But because of it, we will be able to be
healed and strengthened, so that we too can walk through darkness and death, without the fear of
being extinguished.
As Tagore
said: Death is not the extinguishing of the light, but the putting out of the
lamp, because Dawn has come.*
*Rabindranath
Tagore
