Palm Sunday 2003.
Palm Sunday: 13th April, 2003
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
The first Palm Sunday was anything but neat and tidy. There were boisterous and fickle crowds. There were all the tensions to be expected in an occupied city on the edge on an empire at the time of a major local religious festival. There was a growing sense that a clash was on the way, around the hugely popular Jesus of Nazareth. The word was out that the authorities were looking for a way, any way, to silence him and to stop the turbulence and excitement that was wherever he went. As a result of this he had for a while been out of circulation. But the Passover festival was coming, when everyone who was able did their best to get to Jerusalem. Underlying the political tensions then was the buzz of speculation. John's account puts it wonderfully. "He won't come up to the festival...will he?"
The triumphal entry into Jerusalem which we honour and remember today was joyful and full of hope. It was noisy and brash and impulsive. It was indeed the beginning of the end. Everything comes at a rush after this. We ourselves in our liturgical observance mark the decisive change of mood and direction within the one service. It is moving and powerful. Immediately after the joyful shouting and praise, the Lord begins his Way of the Cross. We seek to follow, to observe, to experience, to believe and to hope.
The week that is ahead of us is special and holy. Holy Week day by day offers us the cumulative unfolding spiritual narrative, in word and song and action. For our brothers and sisters in the faith for some 16 centuries, this has been the case. The liturgies we offer and share in can readily be traced at least back to Jerusalem in the fourth century. And still they can be exciting and fresh, each time we join in them.
For this is truly the story of God meeting us where we are. This is the story of pain and evil and suffering being met head on. This is the story of love and of loyalty, of commitment and hope. All these are in the usual context of failure and betrayal, of weakness and despair, and death and grief. But our Easter journey does not allow these ultimately to prevail. It is however a genuine battle. More than once it is not all that clear how things will go. There are times when we can only watch and pray.
But we start together on this day, once again with palms in our hands and hopeful songs on our lips. We start again, reaching out our hand to the hand of the Lord, that is here for us.
Today is going to be a turbulent day right here in central Melbourne. Palm Sunday has become associated with demonstrations and processions that have little connection with the events of that first Palm Sunday. This afternoon there will be at least three public gatherings and marches that will have themes relating to peace and an end to the war. One is specifically Christian, at Federation Square by 2 pm. There is to be a prayer vigil leading up to this there. This is organised by the Victorian Council of Churches.
Our own Melbourne City Churches Way of the Cross next Friday is something very different again. This year will be the fourth year this has happened. I will never forget the first time I found myself part of a crowd of 2,000 or more very quietly and slowly walking down Collins Street, gently singly the lovely Taize song "Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom". And that has happened each time since, even in the rain of last year. Moving as part of such a large but reverent crowd is a wonderful experience. We have the chance to join here at St Peter's, by gathering at our own station, outside under the elm tree after our Good Friday liturgy. We watch and wait and pray there, waiting for the swelling crowd of our brothers and sisters from all the churches of central Melbourne to fill our grounds to overflowing.
So this will be a week of processions and crowds and prayers, and maybe even tears. Our God is with us as we go.
The Lord be with you.
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