As I read the scripture passages for this week, my first thought was that I really wanted to do something with the naked man. This is my favorite text of the arrest of Jesus in the garden because of his appearance. I really wanted to do something about us being laid bare before God or maybe even something about the beginnings of the return to Eden.
But then I thought maybe I should do something about being an ass for Jesus. I really got caught up on the donkey that Jesus rides into town on Palm Sunday in certain Gospel stories. What does it mean to take a lowly place in the story to glorify God? On the other hand, why do so many of those who claim to serve God act like an ass?
But as I worked on an idea for the service this week, I was struck yet again by the flow of this particular Sunday. In many churches, this is not just Palm Sunday but Palm/Passion Sunday. We go from the triumphant entry into Jerusalem straight through Gethsemane and into the arrest, the trial, and the Crucifixion. There is a lot packed into this service.
It was not always this way. For the churches that follow some sort of liturgical calendar, Palm Sunday was just the beginning of Holy Week. On Sunday, you celebrated only the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Thursday was for the Last Supper, and Friday was for the long Passion narrative (from Gethsemane to the Cross). Then on Easter Sunday we celebrate the Risen Christ.
But what if people only come on Sundays? What if they can't or won't come to worship on Thursday and Friday? Then you go from Jesus being celebrated and praised as he enters Jerusalem one Sunday to Jesus rising from the dead the next. It had to leave people wondering how that happened. Just last week he was riding into town while people cheered. When did he die?
And so, we move the Passion story to the Sunday before Easter. And we get the whole long narrative from entering Jerusalem to shouts of "Hosanna!" to entering Golgotha to shouts of "Crucify Him!"
And, more than likely, the same people participated in both chants.
While the traditional structure of Holy Week gives us a few days to get from one to the other, this compression of the story all on one day really brings this home. Of course, Jesus knew what was coming, but for the disciples, even though he had been trying to prepare them for what was coming, maybe only Judas had any inkling of what the next few days would hold...well, at least through Friday. (Unless Jesus and Judas were pulling off a Dumbledore and Snape move, but I digress.)
I imagine for those disciples, those few days from entering Jerusalem with Jesus and hearing all the shouts and cheers to seeing some of those same people snarling and shouting for Jesus to be executed by the state for sedition probably felt just as compressed as Palm/Passion Sunday does for us today. For many of us, we open the service with Hosannas and waving palms, dancing in the aisles and cheering for Jesus. Then the service starts to shift. We have Jesus praying in the garden at night and we hear the pain and even fear in his voice at what is to come, the resignation when Judas leads the others into the garden to take him away. Peter's denial and shame feels all to real as Jesus is then brought before the governor on trumped up charges. The heartbreak of Jesus' mother as she watches him breathe his last breaths. The finality of the stone rolled before the tomb.
The journey from celebration to devastation may have taken a couple of days, but it probably felt like things happened in a blink for them.
But what has really changed? We still see today people who will cheer one moment and denounce you the next. We see people that will grieve with you and then hurl vile epithets your way. We still see young African men arrested on trumped up charges (or none at all) whose fates are decided by European men.
And it only takes a moment for it all to change.
If you don't believe me, I invite you to go to pretty much any news story of the day on a computer and scroll down to the comments. You will see the vilest hatred spewed by the very same people that claim to be followers of Jesus.
Jesus said that we would be known by our love, that whatsoever we do to others we also do to him. We praise him on Sunday and then the very next breath is used to fling violence at someone born in God's image.
I wish now I had stuck with the naked man in the story. Maybe then I could instill a bit of humor to lighten the mood. Instead, perhaps I got caught up on being an ass for Jesus after all.