Tuesday, April 15, 2014

4th Passiontide Palm Sunday 2011, Timeless Life

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
Corrine Vonaesch
April 17, 2011
Matthew 21: 1-11

There is a strong element of paradox about today’s reading. On the one hand, in all humility and seriousness, Christ mounts the donkey and rides in stately calm into the city. The donkey is often the symbol for the physical body. In so doing, He is making manifest how He has joined Himself with mankind’s physical nature. He rides the body with both kingly majesty and with gentleness. By taking on an earthly body, He has also agreed to ride along with the body toward mortality, towards death, towards the astounding death of the ever-creative God.

The crowds cheer ecstatically. They are unconscious of the deeper meaning; they greet the entry of the great prophet, the heir to David’s throne. While Christ continues to contract more and more fully into the body of Jesus, the crowds expand, beside themselves with joy.

In a week’s time, the tables will be turned. Death and descent into the underworld will be followed by Christ’s joyous expansion of life into Death’s realm; death will become life; and the people’s unfounded earthly hopes will trickle away in disappointment, disbelief and into hatred.

The point is that things are not always as they first appear. There are false conclusions—here comes our earthly king who will overthrow the Roman occupiers! There are seeming impossibilities: a shameful torture and criminal execution of an innocent man is really an act of redemption, which, to this day, is an act of unimaginable proportions. Death has become filled with life, life’s benevolent companion.

The poet says:


As timely as a river
God's timeless life passes
Into this world. It passes
Through bodies, giving life,
And past them, giving death.
The secret fish leaps up
Into the light and is
Again darkened. The sun
Comes from the dark, it lights
The always passing river,
Shines on the great-branched tree,
And goes. Longing and dark,
We are completely filled
With breath of love, in us
Forever incomplete.[1]






[1] Wendell Berry, in Given

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