Article
- Date:
- Sunday 2nd April 2023
Year A, Palm Sunday - Place:
- Holy Trinity, Hurstpierpoint
- Service:
- Parish Eucharist
- Readings:
- Psalm 118.1-2;
Matthew 21.1-11
We are walking down the street minding our own business when we are brought to a halt by a knot of people blocking the way. It might be somebody having a heart attack, or a criminal being apprehended, or a celebrity coming out of a shop. And then we see that the focus of attention is a rather gentle-looking figure on a donkey being feted by his followers. They are shouting "Hosanna" which means "Please save us". We are not in a particular hurry so we watch the man on the donkey continue on his way towards the Temple and we ask the people around us what it's all about but they don't seem to know. One says he's a healer from somewhere up in Galilee, another says he's a bit of a stirrer who has it in for the religious authorities and a third says he's got it in for the Romans. Somehow, we don't think that a healer, if that's what he is, would contemplate doing anything to the Romans. In any case, if you're minded to do anything like that, you need a horse not a donkey.
Then we see a man coming back the other way with a palm branch in his hand, so we ask him, as he is obviously a follower of the man on the donkey, what it's all about? He says that the man Jesus is a healer but only to show the power of God. He is a holy man who will save Israel from its sins and declare a new era. We find all this somewhat metaphysical but it gives us something to think about. Israel has gone through a very bad time since the Patriarchs when God made his great Covenant, first with Abraham and then Moses. So we suppose that a new era would be a very good thing.
Looking back over two thousand years we ought to know better. We know about the new era which burst into history at the end of the events we remember in Holy Week. This man on a donkey, coming humbly among his followers, took his humility through torture and unto death, as the result of which Israel and, by extension, his followers down to us, were spared the mortal consequence of sin. We were promised that we would never die, even though we would all variously disobey God's will in creating us to love the Creator and each other of our own free will.
And we also know the truth of what the crowd sang: Jesus did not only save his people from the time of trial, he was the embodiment of the truth that God's mercy is timeless, without particularity of person or place. We know that God's mercy, made concrete in the life and teaching of Jesus, is to be relied upon in every situation. And it follows from that, although we are often reluctant to see it, that this mercy is not dependent in any way on what we do; we were not crated to make a deal with God because there is no deal to be made; we were created to love. So our earthly behaviour is not some kind of down payment on salvation, it's for God and itself alone.
For far too long Christianity has been tangled up with ideas about sin and forgiveness, mostly ideas about personal sin and personal salvation, reducing God's mercy to a set of rules established through religious hierarchy. Often our history has generated a religion of fear rather than of love.
So when we say, as we often do, that we have all fallen short, that is no doubt true but it is far more important to remember that most of us have tried our best to do God's will and most of us have largely succeeded, and that when we have failed most of us have suffered for the failure. We might better describe ourselves as a suffering rather than as a sinful people, which should direct us to be as merciful as we can, reflecting God's mercy, just as we try in our lives to reflect God's love.
And for all our suffering, let us never forget that God's mercy endures forever, for everyone.