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Thought for the
Week 16 March 2008 – Palm Sunday
(Note: Because few people nowadays attend Church
services except on Sundays, the reading of the Passion on the days of Holy
Week passes most people by. The Church
has therefore decided to read the Passion not only on Lent 5, traditionally
known as Passion Sunday, but also on Palm Sunday. This does have the unfortunate effect of
detracting from the momentous events of Palm Sunday and Jesus’ triumphal
entry into Forty
years ago this day, it was what we call Palm Sunday. It was an amazing day. It was just before the Passover, and my family,
like all the others from our village in Galilee had gone down to I had
even heard Him speak once, a couple of years before. We had had a day off to go and hear the new
Rabbi, and what He said was absolutely amazing. Here was a man in whom the Spirit of God
rested, just like Elijah or Moses. He
was a prophet for sure. When we set
off, we hadn’t realised how long He would speak for, nor how much we would
want to hear every word, and nobody had brought anything to eat. There was just one boy who had two little
fish and five little loaves, and Jesus gave thanks to God for the food, and
broke it into pieces, and there was enough for everyone, and there must have
been thousands of us. I stayed till it
got nearly dark, and I could see the disciples gathering up the bits which
filled twelve large palm-leaf baskets. Most of
the twelve, those who were closest to Jesus, were fishermen, but our village
is a little further inland, and, like everybody else there, I am a
farmer. So when I heard Jesus asking two
of the disciples to go and fetch a donkey, I said, straight away, “Can I go
with them?” He smiled and said “Thank
you”. Well, what does a fisherman know
about donkeys? I wanted to do
something for Jesus, but with just two words, “thank you”, and a smile he did
something for me – He changed my life.
Anyway,
we got to the village, and, just as he had said, there were the donkey and
her foal tied up. One of the fishermen
was taking charge, and he tried to undo the donkey. Fortunately, she was tied up with a
farmer’s knot, rather than a seaman’s, and he just made a complete snake’s
wedding of her halter. I said, “Here,
let me”, and untied them both – you have to take the foal as well, because
there’s no way you will ever get the mother to leave her foal behind, and you
can’t just pull; a donkey’s a lot stronger than you or me. We were just about to lead them off, when a
man standing there, said, “Here, what do you think you’re doing, untying that
donkey?” One of the disciples said, “The Rabbi needs them, and will send them
back directly.” I suppose he
recognised our Galilean accent, and must have known that it was Jesus who
needed to borrow the donkey. He looked
a bit embarrassed, and said, “Oh, I see.
You should have said. If it’s
for the Rabbi, of course, you carry on.” Anyway,
we got back to the others, and they put a cloak over her, so that Jesus could
ride. “Here,” said Simon Peter to me,
“you know about animals, you’d better lead the donkey.” We both looked at Jesus, and he smiled
again, so I did. Well,
then it all started happening. The
people were getting all excited. They
ripped branches off the palm trees, to spread before donkey, but she didn’t
seem to mind, she just kept going, however much they shouted and pushed. They were shouting “Hosanna to the Son of
David!” and “Blessed is He who comes
in the name of the Lord!”. Some of
them were even throwing their cloaks down in front, to smooth out the track. It was almost like a triumphal entry that a
great general might have been given when he returned to This
was totally sincere. OK, Jesus was
just wearing a simple woollen robe, not golden armour. And He wasn’t riding on a great white
stallion, just a humble little donkey with me leading her. And there weren’t any bands, or parades of
soldiers, just the people who had come up to I
thought it was all starting, and it was, but not what I had thought. I had read the scriptures, and I knew that
the Messiah would come, and set all things right. I thought it would be like Judas Maccabeus,
with fighting, and just as he threw out the Greeks, Jesus would throw out the
Romans. In that crowd, on that day, it
felt as if we could do anything. We
all wanted to serve him, and most of us would gladly have died fighting for
him. When we
got to the I
wasn’t the only one who thought the uprising was starting. Quite a number of the crowd had weapons
left over from the Maccabean wars, and some had certainly brought them with
them. Even Simon Peter had a sword
hidden under his robe. But we
hadn’t understood at all. It wasn’t
that we were going to have to fight and possibly die for Him – he was going
to suffer and die for us. We
should have known from the donkey.
Generals don’t ride donkeys – even ordinary soldiers have proper
horses. It’s the ordinary people who
ride donkeys. We should have known
from the palms. Generals get palms
made of gold, but the ordinary people make baskets out of palm leaves. We should have known from all that he
taught. That day when I heard him
speak before the loaves and fishes, there was nothing about taking revenge on
the brutal Romans. There was nothing
about righteous indignation. There was
nothing about striking blows for freedom. No, it
was all about loving people, even your enemies. It was all about forgiveness, for does not
God forgive us our sins? And it was
all about turning the other cheek for that to be struck as well. So,
what of me? Well, I kept out of the
way while Jesus was being tried and executed.
It was all too much. So many of
the prophets before him had been murdered in the same sort of way. But
Jesus’ death was not the end of the story at all. I became one of his followers at
Pentecost. Hundreds, perhaps even
thousands of us did. They didn’t call
u Christians then, we were first called “the People of the Way”. It was a few years later, in I shall
probably be with Him in heaven by the time you read this. You will have heard that there was a
terrible fire in It’s
ironic, isn’t it – I thought I could do something for Jesus with the donkeys,
but in fact He did everything for me.
I was leading the donkey that He was sitting on, but actually He has
lead me ever since. I thought I could
give my life fighting for Him, and He gave his life overcoming sin and death
for me. God bless you, my dears, for
coming to visit an old Christian in prison, and may God fill you with the
love and peace that Jesus brought me.
Amen. Father Charles Howard: Anglican
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