Isn’t it funny how times change and attitudes change with them. Today is Palm Sunday, the day when we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and the people cutting down palm branches from the trees and then waving them in the air and laying them down on the road in front of the donkey, shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” If that happened today as Jesus rode into Melton or any of our villages… there would be a crowd of placard-wielding activists protesting about the damage done to the trees, the psychological harm done to the donkey and the effect of the crowd’s shouting on residents living nearby!
Of course, all those issues are important… we must care for the environment and the creatures we share it with, and live peaceably with our neighbours… but being judgemental misses the point of the story… and it’s a point you might fail to see if you’re British born and bred! The people were just having a great time! Whether they were cheering for Jesus himself or were just caught up in the religious fervour of the great Passover Festival they were celebrating is neither here nor there… the point was – they were having a great time and wanted to show it… something that more reserved Brits are not comfortable doing.
When John Wesley, the greater founder of Methodism, was being criticised by the Church leaders of his day, their charge against him was… enthusiasm! I think we could really do with more enthusiasm in our society… no-one seems to be enthusiastic about anything anymore! We have an election coming up, and some experts are predicting the lowest turn-out of voters in history… we lack enthusiasm. We are being warned about the effects of global warming on our planet, but how many of us are really prepared to do anything about it? We lack enthusiasm. We hear about the poor and needy in the world, both in our own country and overseas, and have an opportunity to give, but we often do nothing. We lack enthusiasm.
The people cheering and shouting and waving their palms as Jesus entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday were enthusiastic right enough!… and so was Jesus.
Again, let’s not miss the point of the story… Jesus wasn’t stupid… although some of his disciples thought he was… riding into a city where his enemies’ headquarters was, where they were at their most powerful, and where they would ultimately manage to turn the crowd against him, so that, instead of shouting “Hosanna”, which in Aramaic means something like “Save us, we pray”, they would be shouting “Crucify him”… “Put him to death by nailing him to a cross to suffer and die… in the way you Romans do best!”
I said that Jesus was “enthusiastic” and I meant it! Jesus didn’t have to go to Jerusalem and die… he could have turned around and “done a runner”, and become just another has-been false so-called Son of God, who turned out to be just an ordinary human being who couldn’t deliver what he promised, failed miserably and ultimately drifted back into the obscurity he originally came from. But Jesus didn’t do that. He went to Jerusalem because he was enthusiastic in his love for his followers, even though he knew that the adoration of that Palm Sunday crowd, in a very short time, would turn to the hatred and hostility of the Good Friday mob.
Why can’t we be more enthusiastic in our care and concern for other people? Why can’t we be more enthusiastic in our care for our environment? Why can’t we be more enthusiastic about issues which affect us and those less well off than we are?
We know the happy ending to the story… the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on that first Easter Day. But Jesus didn’t know that as he rode into Jerusalem on that donkey… and nor did the crowd.
