TRIUMPHAL ENTRY
Who cleaned up after the parade? Someone had to clear the streets after the triumphal entry. To make the road passable for the carts and donkeys and foot traffic. It is the part of parades that even now we don’t give much thought to. Picking up all that was left behind.
So, in my imagination, I began to wonder – what went through that un-named person’s mind.
Maybe it was the practical side:
- What a waste of perfectly good shade. The streets are hotter now, without these branches. This is not very environmentally friendly…
Maybe it was the forlorn side:
- Great. Another party that I didn’t get invited to. So why am I always the one who has to clean up after everybody else’ mess?
But maybe it was the redeeming type of questions that went through his heart:
- What do people see in this Jesus that I don’t see?
- What is it about him that so attracts so many people to follow him? To put their cloaks down in front of him?
- What allowed these folks to reverence him enough to follow with their lives?
If there is a question that this triumphal entry might leave with us this day – can it be just that:
Do I reverence our Lord enough to follow him with my life
PASSION ACCOUNT HOMILY
If you had only one thought to guide you through Holy Week, what would that thought be?
As a favor to some friends in Kansas City, I was the Catholic presence at a Methodist wedding held on the Saturday night of Palm Sunday weekend. Though I, like the parents, had pleaded unsucessfully for any other day, there I was. It was strange to be celebrating a wedding after having set up the church for Palm Sunday. I wasn’t in ‘wedding mode’. I was in ‘Holy Week’ mode. But there I was and there was the bride and groom, right in the middle of a wedding.
Fortuitously, there was a moment during the ceremony that suddenly moved me right into the heart of “Holy Week”. The Bride had a particularly expressive face. And at one point, I thought I could read her mind. For a brief instant it seemed like the only possible thought that could have been in her head to match the expression on her face was this: “Will I ever be worthy of this love?” This was not the guilt laden, un-redeemed kind of expression on her face, but an awestruck, amazing kind of expression. “Will I ever be worthy of this kind of giving, this kind of laying down of his life for me?”
Perhaps you know this thought in one form or another, through the gift of the people who have loved you well in your life. And if you have, then I invite you to call that experience back to your head and heart this week as you reflect on Jesus’ sacrifice. And if you have not, then let the story of the Passion of our Lord be that gift in your life – of a love that gives everything for you. The one thought that will guide my reflection this week is that simple one. Perhaps it can guide yours as well. Not in a shame based, loathsome, guilty kind of way – but in the awestruck amazement of this bride before her beloved: “Will I ever be worthy of this kind of love? Will I ever be worthy of the love I know in Jesus?
For that is what Calvary always says to us. We are never deserving of any love. However the one who has died on this hill has indeed chosen us for this love. He has chosen us like a groom chooses a bride and a bride chooses her groom. Freely and without reservation. Let us rejoice and exult in a lover who has not only chosen us, but saved us as well…