4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday 2021, He Suffers In Us

 4^th 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 a foal of the beast of burden.'

Julia Stankova

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 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."

4^th 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,

Julia Stankova

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.

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

 

For more inspiring resources, go to https://www.christiancommunityseminary.ca/podcast

 

4th Passiontide 2018, Palm Sunday, Christ Light

4^th Passiontide

Palm Sunday

Matthew 21: 1-11

Lippi Memmo

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

March 25, 2018

Matthew 21: 1-20

Entry into Jerusalem, Ninetta Sombart

Spring, new birth in nature; the tender wonders of youth and love; sunrise, the beginning of a new day; in these our souls rejoice.

Yet these are not the whole story, for every spring has its corresponding autumn. Every sunrise has its sunset. Every birth moves toward inevitably toward a death. Together these create a necessary balance, the whole of reality.

The crowd rejoices as they perceive the sparks scintillating from the God of the Sun. They feel the surge of spring; in an ecstasy of joy, they lay before Him the branches of the sun-tree, the palm.

Yet Christ moves through their wild joy in calm solemnity. He is moving resolutely toward His own autumn; for the sun of his human life is about to set.

Yet His death will reverse the old pattern. His death will bring about a new birth; the birth of a new kind of sun; a sun that shines steadily, a spirit sun that never sets. He rises on a Sunday to become the first born from the realm of the dead. (Rev. 1:5) He is the bright star that shines in the morning. (Rev. 22:16)

It is our heart’s deepest desire to find the spirit sun here on earth; to find and follow the light that shines in the darkness in solemn joy; to behold the Christ light in our daylight.

4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday 2016, Sunset, Son-Rise

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

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4th Passiontide, Palm Sunday 2015, Gentle He Is

4th Passiontide

Hipolyte Flandrin

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, March 29, 2015

Matthew 21: 1-11

The images and pictures of Holy Week reveal a secret. In mythology, the donkey is a symbol for the physical body – Brother Ass, as St. Francis called it. Many of us may feel ourselves submerged within our bodies. Or perhaps the body feels like a runaway donkey dragging our spirits along. Or perhaps, especially as we get older, we may feel our body as a burden that we are coaxing along behind us like an unwilling and stubborn animal.

Monk with a Donkey, Buongiorno

Christ came to help human beings establish a new relationship to their physical nature. The image of Christ riding the donkey and its foal in majesty is a picture of our own future. We will one day lovingly and gently master our bodily nature and it will carry us where we want to go. The picture image of the new young foal even hints at the future development of a new kind of body.

Here at the beginning of Holy Week Christ directs His body toward Jerusalem and its Temple. After today He will enter and leave every day on foot, until late Thursday, when he will remain, entering into the body’s death process. And at the moment of death, the birthing of a new kind of body, the resurrection body, will begin.  Step by step we can accompany this process, for

Behold, your king comes to you in majesty.

Gentle He is,

 and he rides on a donkey

and on a foal of beast of burden. Matthew 21:5

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