Thoughts from Palm Sunday

Mark 11: As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, ² saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³ If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’”

⁴ They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, ⁵ some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” ⁶ They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. ⁷ When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. ⁸ Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. ⁹ Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” ¹⁰ “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

The Sunday before Easter is called Palm Sunday – all four gospel writers tell us the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.  People pulled palm leaves down and waved them in the procession. 

I took part in such a procession once.  We were staying with friends in Cornwall on Palm Sunday one year and we joined the local Methodist church as it paraded through the village waving leaves and following a donkey. There was a great sense of atmosphere – both among those of us in the procession and those looking on. No one asked what the donkey thought of it.

All these people who are crying out “Hosanna!” – “Save us!”  What did they want to be saved from?

Well, they lived in enemy-occupied land and we know they wanted freedom to rule their own country. They wanted freedom from arrest and torture.

Just 2 weeks ago, you will have heard on the news that Taliban bombs had exploded outside two churches in the Youhanabad district of the Pakistani city of Lahore. 16 people were killed, 10 critically injured and around 80 more affected by blast injuries. A local pastor friend of mine was preaching in his church nearby when the blasts were felt.  Another contact of mine lives just 4 minutes’ walk from one of the damaged churches.

Both of these families have since spoken of how Christians in that place live in fear of arrest, injury or death for their faith.  I know what they cry ‘Hosanna’ for…

Today, what is it that people around us in Southend want saving from? 

When we ask God to save us, what do we really want God to save us from? 

What about anger? Save me from my credit card debt or the Department of Work & Pensions? 

How about save me from the arguments that rip apart my relationships?  Save me from the people on my estate. Save me from my addiction to booze or weed or porn. 

Jesus riding into Jerusalem in this way is an event of significance. In Luke 19, the Pharisees beg Jesus to tell the crowds to stop their hosannas. "I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out!"

The stones by the roadside would start to sing because God is on the move, wanting everyone to know and celebrate that, through what Jesus will do, there will be a new creation where everyone can have a fresh start.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem I hear an echo of His first words in Mark’s gospel: “Now’s the time!”  God is saying “Enough is enough!”  A change is gonna come!  It may not be the change that you think or seek but it’s on its way…

That’s why Palm Sunday is more than waving branches and singing hosannas. It shows us a God who loves all of us enough to take the journey through Jerusalem; to pain and humiliation and death and then beyond that…to life and a new hope for the future.  

Mothering Sunday—a day for honouring all our mothers.

Mothering Sunday...

A day to honour all those women in our lives who have loved us—whether we call them  mother  or  gran  or  sister  or  wife  or daughter  or  aunt  or  nan  or  friend or boss.

And also a day for honouring all those women in our family of faith who have loved and nurtured our church community - whether we call them friend or sister or minister or elder or  deacon or the lady who does the teas.

Today, I want to remember four women from the early church, who showed what it is to love God and then to nurture a church community.  The first is Lydia, a gentile business woman, who out of her generosity provided the meeting place for the first gathering of Christians in the Greek city of Philippi. We read about her in the Book of Acts chapter 16.

And then Priscilla, a Jewish tentmaker, who, with her husband Aquila, instructed Christian communities and leaders in three of the principal cities of the Roman Empire—Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome itself. We find more about her in Acts 18; Romans 16; 1 Corinthians 16 and 2 Timothy 4.

Then, the two unnamed slave women in Bithynia (now modern-day Turkey) who were deaconesses in the church there in the second century.  The Roman governor, Pliny the Younger, had them tortured just to find out what Christians really believed. We read about them in Eusebius – a collection of documents from the early church.  I find it difficult, 1900 years later, to read the few lines about these two women leaders being tortured to satisfy a politician's curiosity without tears.

And finally, I think today of Correne and Ann-Marie and other women who have been at the heart of Church from Scratch.

A prayer for today:

O God, help us to retell the stories of the mothers of your church. We repent of the way in which the church has so often treated women in the past and commit ourselves to honouring one another in your church. 

Create in us a spirit like that found both in Lydia and in Priscilla—a spirit open to yours, eager to receive and act upon your good news. Help us to have the same courage as those two slaves. 

Thank you for all we have treasured in the Godly women we have known.

In the name of the risen Christ, we pray this. 

Amen.