4th Passiontide (Palm Sunday)
Matthew 21:1-11
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 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.
Julia Stankova
Many from 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!
Hosanna
in the highest! [or, 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
March 28, 2021
Matthew 21:1-11
We are entering Holy Week. The altar and vestments are
black. Especially in this week, Christ battles the forces of duality. These are
the false polarities of either/or, black or white, the yes or no of dead binary
thinking. Good or bad; heaven or hell. By the end of the week, He will arrive
at Golgatha, literally the Place of the Skull. At the place of the skull, He
will die. And in a garden, He will rise again.
Christ exists in the living world of flow,
change, and metamorphosis.
He operates in the changing subtleties of the grayscale, in the nuances of
color in transforming one form to another. His opponents ask Him questions
designed to entrap Him. He gives them answers from outside of their framework,
answers from the flowing world of a greater reality. 
Julia Stankova
Today we still battle with the deadness into which our
brain-bound intellect so quickly falls. We still tend to use ill-making
polarities in the way we think, thus closing ourselves off from more
significant possibilities. Nevertheless, we strain to open our thoughts in
reverence. We struggle to warm our hearts in empathy. We strive to act
according to inspirations of our conscience, our higher self.
In those moments when we manage reverence of thought, when
we burn with heart’s love, when we act out of inspirations of conscience, in such
moments, Christ can operate in the world. In such moments Christ is in us. It is He that thinks in us, suffers in us,
dies, and rises in us. As Rilke says,
To work with Things in the
indescribable
relationship is not too hard for
us;
the pattern grows more intricate
and subtle,
…
Take your practiced powers and
stretch them out
until they span the chasm
between two
contradictions ... For the god
wants to know himself in you.*
* Rainer Maria Rilke, in Ahead of All
Parting, ed. and translated by Steven Mitchell
