March 16, 2008
(The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday)
The Most Important Thing
By The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean
The Liturgy of the Palms:
Matthew 21:1-11 Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
The Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 50:4-9a Psalm 31:9-16 Philippians
2:5-11 Matthew 27-11-54
(From
The Lectionary Page)
In several settings recently I have heard the following sentiment: The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.
Holy Week offers us such a gift. Before us this week is the centrality of our faith. By his holy and glorious Passion, by his Cross and precious Death, and by his glorious Resurrection, Christ has delivered us from the power of death and opened for us the kingdom of heaven. This is called the Paschal Mystery: through the Cross and empty tomb Jesus passes over from death into life. And by Gods grace, so do we all.
But when you and I encounter death, rarely does it feel like new life is just on the other side. We may have occasion to be grateful that a loved ones suffering is over, but death feels so certain and final.
There are other kinds of death that test our belief.
Perhaps it is when one of lifes goals shatters before our eyes as
when a business we have poured our life-blood into fails.
Our heart is pierced when a person we love says the relationship
is over.
And when we or a loved one receives a diagnosis that speaks of
months not years of mortal life remaining, we cry out My God why
have you forsaken me?
We participate in the drama of this day and enter into this Great Week with the hope of the apostles and the ache of those at the cross that Gods will heal our pain and our faith and rob the grave of its power so that we might be freed. And God will.
But in order for Jesus to be raised on the third day, he must
die. And if we are to be raised to new life, we must take up our
cross, and travel through the valley of the shadow of death many
times. We, too, must die, must die to self if we are to be raised.
Most of all, we must die to the notion that if God truly loves us we
will never hurt or be in pain or have a broken heart. God loves us
too much to lie to us. Through all the pain and suffering we
experience, the crucified Lord is with us, and will walk with us
through deaths shadow to eternal and resurrected life. The Paschal
Mystery: Christ has died, Christ is risen. Today we encounter the
Lords death.
The liturgy for this day begins in hope and exultation and will end in silence. With all our being we wish to rush to the empty tomb, but the grace that saves us is found in the Garden, before Pilate, on the road to Golgotha, and hanging on the Cross, in the one despised by all.
I once found that same despised savior in on a rainy, blustery early April evening in Chicago. (Some of you have heard me tell this story before.) A friend and I, both second-year seminarians, had just attended Solemn Evensong at a city parish on Palm Sunday, and now were heading for a Rush Street diner to grab some supper before heading back to Evanston. The wind was strong off of Lake Michigan, and our route required us to walk straight into it.
As we trudged through the driving rain, a figure approached us. As the wind let up for a moment, I could see it was a man, his long, scraggly hair soaked from the rain. He wore an Army surplus coat missing all of its buttons. Beneath his coat he wore many layers of dirty, torn shirts. He was what we so easily call a streetperson.
My friend and I traveled this route often, encountering many street people asking for money. Seminarians rarely had extra change, and besides, it was likely that any handout would go towards a cheap bottle of booze. So, as the man neared us, I instinctively dug my hands deeper into my pockets.
Within a few moments we were face to face, and sure enough, he
stretched out a hand towards me. I was ready to say, "Nothing
tonight." But he didnt ask for anything. Rather, he was handing me
something. I squinted through the rain, and saw that he was offering
me a palm branch. He handed one to me and to my friend, and then,
without a word, turned away from us and toward others hurrying by.
We walked across the street to our diner and took a booth near a window, and watched the Palm Man. He offered branches to everyone who passed by. A few refused, but most took a palm. But after a few steps, the branch was thrown to the ground. Each time, the man hurried to pick up the discarded palm. He would wipe off the mud on his rain-soaked coat, and lovingly add it to the bunch of fronds inside his coat, which he was protecting from the rain. Eventually, the man moved on.
As my friend and I returned to the church parking lot to retrieve our car, we walked by a large outdoor crucifix affixed to an outside wall. Beneath the crucifix was a quote from Lamentations: Is it nothing to you who pass by?
Of course the crucifixion was something to me. But was the street person anything? Was his handing me a palm branch simply an offbeat act perhaps influenced by intoxication? Or was the Crucified Lord every bit as present in him as in the liturgy I had attended? That was my cross to bear that Holy Week. And I needed to die to some prejudice in order to be made new.
The Gospel for this day ends with the dead body of Jesus in a tomb. But the liturgy does not end there. It ends after we have come to the Holy Table. The blessed Body given for us, the Blood poured out for us, is the greatest means of grace and true life we can ever know this side of Paradise.
Jesus said:
Whoever eats this bread will live forever.
If you are my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me.
The Son of Man will be crucified, and on the Third Day rise again.
At the Cross, death was not removed from human experience. But it was conquered. Its sting, its power, its place as the final end of human life, was utterly destroyed. Each of us, and the Church, needs this Great and Holy Week, its liturgies, and music, and silence, and tears, so that we can learn that great truth once again, that death has been conquered. We need this Week.
The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.
