Palm Sunday 2004
Palm Sunday: 4th April, 2004
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Our Palm Sunday procession at St Peter's is a fairly sedate affair – compared to the noise and the chaos of that first one – and for that matter fairly short. The question of what on earth do you do with the donkey after those first five minutes does not arise for us, at least this year. Our liturgical observance is briefly very public on this busy intersection of ours. We gather at our wayside cross to offer prayers. We know that this week that crucifix will be particularly lovingly tended by all those anonymous people who bring flowers at all hours of the day and night. The people who have happened to see us from their cars this morning or just walking along the footpath, were all busy heading off to do something else. That too bears some similarity with the original event we are commemorating. But they will have noticed that something was going on here, and over the road at the cathedral and around the block at the Greek church and down the street at the German church. This year, with the happy coincidence of both the western and eastern dates for Easter, all the major Christian traditions are doing this at the same time. This is very special.
We are all marking off a day as different, as of significance. With our palm branches and crosses in our hands and the steady rhythm and familiar words of those Palm Sunday hymns, we here have met first outside the church in the Parish Hall, to mark the special beginning of this, the week of weeks, the most important of the Christian year. Our journey began from outside the holy place and journeyed towards the centre of things, together with the one who is the centre of things. We are honouring Our Lord's entry into Jerusalem that last time, to loud and joyful shouts, and then, all too soon, the solemn chanting of the Passion gospel declares us to be at the beginning of Holy Week.
Holy Week is an extended Way of the Cross. There is ample opportunity for reflection and for consideration of what this might mean for each one of us and for us as a community of faith. In particular, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, there are the particular ceremonies and observances that have for centuries been associated with this unfolding story of God's love for us, in Jesus the Christ. They can be moving, awesome, harrowing, humbling. And they will end with great joy.
We have a great gift here that is worth cherishing and sharing. It is an honour and a privilege for all of us, to be able to participate each year in this great liturgical offering – for we are all participants and not just observers. At the heart is the telling again of this great story, this great mystery, this great wonder. The chief wonder is that there is indeed something here that can speak to us, in our own lives, where we are. It is a story of love and pain, of friendships and betrayals, of corruption, of politics, of fear. It is a story of living and dying, and of rising again. A story ultimately of great hope.
The greatest gift we can receive in this Holy Week is the gift of a renewed and fresh awareness, of the love and grace of God at work in our lives – and then to be part of a community of faith that truly shows that, in all that we do and say and share.
The Lord be with you.
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