Palm Sunday
Sunday 5th April 2020
As public worship has been suspended in a bid to limit the spread of the Coronavirus the service for Palm Sunday was recorded and made available online. That can be found here.
Palm Sunday
Mark 1-11
Matthew 27. 11-54
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Palm Sunday is the day that begins the week approaching Easter. Holy Week we call it in the church. For many the most sacred time in the calendar and this year it feels both strange and very special because of the extraordinary events we are living through.
Today we remember Jesus entering Jerusalem with crowds surrounding him and crying out in expectation and celebration! No thought of social distancing then!
But we are again seeing people come out onto the street on Thursday evenings; not with palm branches, but with their applause and makeshift percussion instruments – making a joyful noise in support of those individuals working on the front line of this war against Coronavirus.
The people welcoming Jesus were expecting a Saviour – a military leader – a populist politician and liberator. That was what sparked their enthusiasm.
And what they actually received was very different. Jesus was focused not on popular acclaim, but on God and what he felt overwhelmingly was his duty and purpose before God. So he came as a humble Servant, not an all-conquering King. Gently riding – not to war or conflict – but to submission before the forces of evil on the back of a beast of burden.
Today we too face a challenge to be like Jesus and to lay down our pride and take up our cross. For most of us, that cross is simply the challenge of remaining at home – annoying maybe, boring perhaps, but hardly life-threatening.
For our health workers, the challenge of the cross may be feeling all too real. They are literally risking their lives, so that others might live. So today we come to lay down all that separates us from each other, from our neighbours and from God. Not the physical barriers and distance that are necessary for protection at this time, but the barriers of self-interest, of selfish consumption of goods and other resources, of hardness of heart. We lay them down, so that, with empty hands and open hearts, we can receive the peace and joy and love of God.
Amen.