PALM SUNDAY

Palm Sunday….

Sometimes we understand it….

Sometimes we don’t understand it.

Why didn’t Jesus simply get out of Jerusalem

and head back home to Nazareth and the carpenter shop

and avoid this horrible week of suffering and mystery?

Palm Sunday ….

Sometimes we understand it.

We know the feeling.

We know the story.

We too have had our Palm Sunday celebrations

and then we took a turn and that leads to a twist and another turn

and we find ourselves in the middle of Good Friday

and we’re making our Way of the Cross to Calvary.

Palm Sunday isn’t too far away from Good Friday.

The first day on the new job,

a great job,

all kinds of congratulations

all the welcomes and best wishes

and then the day we’re fired or cut

and nobody said or says anything.

Heads are down. Eyes looking elsewhere.

The team wins the championship, the trophy.

Palms up. The high fives.

The banquets and the pictures in the paper

And then the following season, disaster.

Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

We’ve been there.

The day we walked our daughter down the aisle

And then the morning phone call,

“It’s all over dad.

It’s all over.”

“But what about the kids?”

“It’s all over dad.

Sorry.”

The tears, too many beers,

or too much silence or selfishness or blindness.

Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

We’ve been there.

Life. Mom and dad’s 50^th Wedding Anniversary

and then later, the problems, incontinence, cancer, loneliness, the coffin.

Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

The days we were riding high and the day we felt like a stupid donkey.

Palm Sunday to Good Friday.

Thank God Jesus didn’t go the other way.

Thank God Holy Thursday is in between.

He washed our feet.

He fed us with the finest wheat.

And thank God for Easter.

Resurrection.

A new Beginning.

A new Spring.

Easter is always after Good Friday, every time.

Amen.