Reflections for Lent, April 14, 2014: Palm Sunday
I am posting this two days early because I don't want the same dates on them, which is silly, of course.
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. We moderns often speculate and wonder why Jesus was praised on Sunday by the crowds and four or five days later was crucified by them. (No arguments on who killed him; humanity is complicit in power, and we are nothing but victims if we think otherwise.) The fickleness of the crowd, the mob. A good reason never to listen to the majority, although it seems to be part of our DNA to do so (especially in democracy).
I have heard people say it wasn't the same people; that seems like an easy answer, and duplicitous; we know our own fickleness and vacility (I think I just made up that word, but I like it: our facility at vacillating).
Even more, though, it speaks to the two extremes that we walk between, circumspectly, in life: joy and tragedy. We sow in tears but will reap in joy. The joy of Palm Sunday turned to tears of the Christian Passover (Good Friday? what was good about it?) to the joy of Resurrection Day.
That verse is a promise and a reality; we have felt it, but in the midst of tears we have a hard time believing it, despite the past.
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. We moderns often speculate and wonder why Jesus was praised on Sunday by the crowds and four or five days later was crucified by them. (No arguments on who killed him; humanity is complicit in power, and we are nothing but victims if we think otherwise.) The fickleness of the crowd, the mob. A good reason never to listen to the majority, although it seems to be part of our DNA to do so (especially in democracy).
I have heard people say it wasn't the same people; that seems like an easy answer, and duplicitous; we know our own fickleness and vacility (I think I just made up that word, but I like it: our facility at vacillating).
Even more, though, it speaks to the two extremes that we walk between, circumspectly, in life: joy and tragedy. We sow in tears but will reap in joy. The joy of Palm Sunday turned to tears of the Christian Passover (Good Friday? what was good about it?) to the joy of Resurrection Day.
That verse is a promise and a reality; we have felt it, but in the midst of tears we have a hard time believing it, despite the past.
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