The Journey to Holy Week - Matthew 21: 1-11

Think back to a time in your past when you felt the stir of celebration coming. Perhaps it was on your birthday as a child, eagerly waiting for a party to celebrate your very existence. Or maybe it was an early Christmas morning, when you couldn’t sleep out as your mind raced about what you would find underneath the Christmas tree. Or when you were entering the sanctuary to be married or witnessed the birth of your first child. Milestones in our lives are a cause for celebration.

There are also times in our lives when being with the people we love, those whom we adore, is just as much of a cause of celebration. There is something almost magical about driving to see those whom have a special place in your heart or waiting at the airline arrival gate. When I was in college I often volunteered to shuttle people for airport runs – even with the nearest airport being close to an hour and a half from the small college town. The hardest trips for me were always the ones when I would have to say goodbye to my best friend, however, I would have uncontainable excitement each semester as I went to pick him up from the airport – to be reunited from our breaks for another period of adventure. Of course this is not to say that our entire friendship has been caught between extreme sadness or excitement – we are just two people traveling through life together, and probably have spent more time laughing and arguing then anything else. But there is something that is marked in our memories around hellos and goodbyes.

And is that not what Jesus is doing in our passage of scripture today? As he enters the gates of Jerusalem he is simultaneously saying hello and goodbye. He is greeted with shouts of acclaim and praise as he rode the donkey with her colt in trail. He was just given something so precious as the animals simply because he was the Rabbi and he needed them – no other questions asked. He was not even allowed to ride the donkey barebacked, as his disciples piled on their cloaks for him.

While this passage is chiefly thought of with Jesus as the subject, and rightly so, I wonder what has to be going through the disciples heads during this journey. Over the past three years it has never been mentioned that Jesus was treated like royalty in his presence. It was not noted that he rode any animals or traveled in any way that was distinct from the rest of them. His feet bore the same calluses and dust. But now, he is entering the gates of Jerusalem, a place he has been some time before, but is being treated like someone more than a Rabbi – he on his donkey is caught between the paradox of a pregnant woman and emerging King.

I also have to wonder about the crowds – if Jesus was not on the donkey would they have been so excited to see him? Would they still have gathered even if he simply walked through the city gates with his disciples? Or was the donkey necessary, for his own protection, as if the crowds would have crushed him if he was on his feet alone. Whatever the crowds motives they did come in hoards. They laid down their cloaks, for some all they had, so the donkey Jesus was riding on would not step hoof on average ground. They cut down tree branches and waved them before throwing them on the ground as well to be traipsed over. All the while shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna!”

Not everyone was as eager to be in the presence of Jesus, however, as he rode through the city gates. Our passages said, “The whole cit was stirred to its depths, demanding, ‘who is this?’” But the crowds are not counted as part of the whole city, for they are set apart in such a way that they can answer the question being posed. No the whole city, the wealthy, the leadership, the Roman Empire, and Jewish religious leaders were different from the crowd. Surely they had also heard of this Jesus and all that was being done through him in the name of God. But now something was different. Now he was riding through their town and receiving a hero’s welcome, which frightened them to their core. Like King Herod so many years ago they were more caught up with the idea of protecting what they had, their throne and power, instead of worshipping this one who the others were calling blessed.

So with all of these characters gathered around him – the disciples, the worshipping crowds, and the skeptical leaders, Jesus entered the gates. He was greeting the crowds with his very presence, but in his heart he knew that he was also saying goodbye – for by the end of the week he would die a criminal’s death.

We are entering the most Holy Week of the Christian Calendar today. For the next eight days we will walk the familiar road with Jesus. For many of us the road has become almost too familiar. We rush from the fanfare of Palm Sunday to the empty grave on Easter, never realizing what happens between these two bookmark celebrations, we never have a chance to mourn for Jesus and for ourselves or to listen to his agonizing goodbyes. For others of us, we are perpetually caught in the mood of Good Friday, refusing to celebrate what is to come. But Jesus is beckoning us to travel the entirety of this week, from Psalm Sunday through each of the days of his final week, calling us to be ever present to our emotions and self-examination.

For just as my friend and I could not live constantly between being reunited and saying goodbye – we, too, with Jesus must be in the mundane of ordinarily every day relationship. This week reminds us that we cannot only be in celebratory mode or in a perpetually state of sorrowful mourning. We cannot simply cry “Hosanna!” today and “Christ is Risen!” next week. Each day during this holy season of lent and especially this coming week, we are invited on a journey to the paradoxical familiar and yet unknown. We may know the stories, but have we internalized them, have we walked with them? We may know the right phrases to say, but have they become part of our every day lives? This is the week when we are reminded of why we are who we are and why we gather together to be the church. May we not take that task lightly. Otherwise we are simply living on the edges of what our faith could become. Amen.