April 17, 2011 - Palm Sunday, Year A (RCL)
Jerusalem
is a city of hills.
Coming from the Jordan river,
you begin by passing Jericho,
a dusty city down on the plain,
and nearby
a roadside store with camels outside
ready for tourists to ride.
Then you begin to climb,
passing tribes of Bedouins
with semi permanent camps
clustered on the hillsides,
shacks patched together with scraps of tin and wood and blue tarpaulins,
and flocks of sheep
still cared for the same way they have always been,
a shepherd
walking alongside them
across the stony ground,
with only the barest brush of green for food.
Then past the Inn of the Good Samaritan - perhaps not the exact one
Jesus talked about in the parable,
but an ancient one, all the same.
And it begins to get greener
as you get closer to the city
and pass into the microclimate
that makes it habitable,
and high on the hills on your left
an Israeli settlement,
and then an Arab village,
and the wall that divides the West Bank
from the rest of Israel,
and you travel over
the crest of a hill
and suddenly there it is,
Jerusalem,
the Dome of the Rock
shining gold in the sunlight.
It’s the same way
that Jesus came,
up through the hills
from Jericho.
The store might not have been there, and the camel rides for tourists,
but I’m sure there were roadside stalls for travelers,
and camels on the road bringing in produce and goods from the east,
and bedouin camps and herds of sheep.
It’s a thirty mile journey, too far for one day,
and he might well have stopped at an inn
just like the one
that’s there today.
And then on
towards the city,
passing not Jewish settlements and Arab villages
but Roman camps and Jewish villages, and there might as well have been a wall between them.
Until finally
they reached the final hill, and
when they reached the top,
there it was,
the city of Jerusalem spread before them in the valley,
and the temple
at the very center of it all.
Today
when you visit the Mount of Olives,
there are tour buses
and a lookout
and people everywhere;
you have to watch
for pickpockets.
And there is a camel
and a donkey,
and for $5
you can ride them.
But then, it was just Jesus and his disciples,
a hillside of olive trees,
the Kidron Valley
and then
the city walls.
And the disciples had found for him a donkey,
with her baby beside her,
and Jesus climbed on
and began the journey
that would take him into Jerusalem,
the journey
that would take him
to his death.
And a crowd gathered. It wasn’t every day
that you saw someone riding a donkey. They were mostly used
for carrying things, not people.
If a first century carving is anything to go by,
a man riding a donkey
was a figure of fun.
It was the sort of thing you would only do
if you were drunk.
Anyone of importance
would ride a horse;
everyone else
would walk.
But here was Jesus coming down the hill
into Jerusalem
on the back of a donkey.
and something
set him apart.
Perhaps
it was the cloths
laid across the donkeys back
a makeshift saddle.
Perhaps it was the twelve men with him,
clearly not entirely comfortable with the whole procession,
some of them looking fearfully around
and others laughing and relaxing now the long journey was nearly over.
Or perhaps it was
that he was headed
through the gloriously arched
Golden Gate.
It was the most direct way into the city,
the most direct way
to the temple,
but it was also the way
that the Messiah was expected to take
on his return.
“Who is he,”
you could hear
being whispered through the crowd. “Who is he?”
Perhaps the rumors
had gone ahead of Jesus;
this was the one
who they’d heard stories of,
the one who had fed the thousands,
and healed many
and just a day ago
given two blind men
their sight.
“Who is he?”
And someone said, no one remembered who it was,
someone said,
“Do you think
that this
could be the Messiah?”
And the whisper spread, and grew,
and next thing the people
were taking their cloaks
and making a carpet for him,
and tearing branches from trees
and laying them on the road.
And they began to shout,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
And as the crowd grew
so did the questions from inside the city.
Because just as Jesus and his disciples could see the temple from the hill,
so the people in the city
could see the crowd coming down, waving and shouting,
and they wondered who it was. Some dignitary? A long lost family member? A local made good?
“Who is he?” they asked.
And then someone said,
“Isn’t that Jesus? He was with the Baptist, down by the jordan, about three years ago. Haven’t seen much of him since, but I’ve heard the rumors. Up in Galilee he was,
a teacher, and some people said he did miracles. That was the rumor, anyway. Wonder what
he’s doing here?”
And then Jesus disappeared into the temple grounds,
and there was a huge commotion, crashing and clashing and
people shouting and birds screeching and sheep baaing,
and above it all
his voice, Jesus’s,
“How dare you make this place of prayer
a den of robbers!”
And at the same time
there were people coming to him, some who couldn’t walk, and others who were blind,
begging him for help,
and he healed them,
while all around
the religious officials
were righting tables
and catching escaped birds,
and telling people to stop shouting,
and trying to push the crowds
back out the gate.
And suddenly over all the noise
they heard the high voices of children,
“Hosanna to the Son of David.”
We think of Palm Sunday
and Jesus entry into Jerusalem
as a solemn, decorous even,
a presidential motorcade, if you like, shouting yes,
but all within the strict bounds of safety and security.
Nothing like this crazy, exciting, frightening thing,
with laughter and anger and tears and hope
written across faces,
and no one quite sure
what was happening
and where it would end.
But we know
where it ended,
on a hill
on the other side of the city,
outside the wall,
on a cross, strung up to die.
And we’re left, as we’re left all of this holiest of weeks
with the question that the city of Jerusalem asked,
“Who is he?”
Is he a king?
Is he a madman?
Is he drunk?
Is he a prophet?
Is he a danger?
Is he a friend?
Is he the Messiah?
Is he the Christ?
Is he our Savior?
What will you answer?
Who is he?
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010