The Parade into Jerusalem

Author: Mark Fenstermacher
March 26, 2021

There are all sorts of parades. My hometown manages to have a 4th of July parade with fire trucks, high school bands, classic cars and restored tractors. The parade is fun but it doesn’t last long. My Mom told me that when I was a child, in Brussels, I was in the crowd when King Baudouin—newly crowned—passed by. When my granddaughters were very young, we stood in the bitter cold along Michigan Avenue to watch the Chicago Christmas parade. Ella was on my shoulders, trying to see, when a stranger invited us forward to take his spot on the curb so we could see it all.

There is a kind of parade going on as Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem in the days before Passover. The New Testament makes it sound like the whole city turned out to hear and cheer the miracle-working rabbi from Nazareth. Some scholars say while a crowd welcomed Jesus, many residents of the city went on about their business with indifference to the arrival of this revolutionary teacher from the north country.
I hope I would have been there to cheer him on. I hope I would have been there to shout encouragement to him because he had chosen the hard way. Many of those following him expected the political and religious establishments to strike back against him. I hope I could have gotten close enough that he would have seen me, that we would have locked eyes for just a moment as he passed by, and he would have seen my love for him shining in my eyes.

Even more, though, I hope I would have been there when the wild, joyful parade was over and—a few days later—the march to Golgotha began. Something happened to the crowds between the moment of Jesus’ entrance into the city and the hour when he was led out of the city with a heavy, rough cross-beam across his shoulders. Many of those who called him “Savior” when he entered the city were nowhere to be found when Jesus was marched to the rocky outcrop that looked like a skull. Or, having found the way of love and peace-making too hard, having found standing up to the crowd too exhausting, they surrendered to the rising tide of hate and cheered the spectacle at Golgotha.

As we come to this Palm Sunday, I find myself thinking not only of the blood of Jesus spilled on the cross but the blood of those who have been gunned down in Atlanta, Boulder and on everyday streets across our country.  Hatred, racism, mental illness, a culture of violence and easy access to automatic weapons designed for war have all combined—again—to produce one more bloody, shocking moment. How many of these will have to happen before we do the right thing...before we take on the serious work of peace-making?

One of the challenges for every follower of Jesus is to be there as he enters the city and be there with him at the cross. It’s not an easy thing to remain faithful to him all the way to the end. Our intentions are good but there are these moments along the way when we are tempted to slip away from Jesus because the way of peace and the way of love are too hard for us. We worship empire over Jesus and we slip away. We worship weapons over love and we slip away. We find things become our treasure, we never have enough, and we slip away. An addiction swallows us up, whether drugs or pornography or the love of power, and we slip away. 

Even Simon Peter slips away, between the Last Supper and the trial of Jesus, and we know just how easy it is to slip away. The way of God, the way of love, the way of peacemaking, is hard and sometimes we just get weary of trying to overturn the tables of injustice.
There are all sorts of parades. Palm Sunday is one parade and the march out to the edge of the city, on Good Friday, will be another. May you be faithful. And, if you have found that you have slipped away, fallen away, may the mercy and love of God draw you back in time for God’s Easter new beginning.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Mark Fenstermacher

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Join us this week for:

Stations of the Cross Video Devotional
Available on our resources page for you to use as your holy week devotional on your own schedule.

Palm Sunday -March 28
8:30 & 11 am - Worship Service

Maundy (Holy) Thursday - April 1st
5-6 pm - The Sanctuary will be open for prayer and reflection. Come and go. (Masks please.)
6:30 pm - Worship Service with music, a message and communion.

Good Friday - April 2nd
12-3 pm - The Sanctuary will be  open for prayer and reflection. Come and go. (Masks please.)
5-6 pm - The Sanctuary will be open for prayer and reflection. Come and go. (Masks please.)
6:30 pm - Good Friday Tenebrae Service (a cooperative worship experience with The Gathering and First Presbyterian)

Easter Sunday - April 4th 
8:30, 9:50, & 11 am - Worship Service (each identical in style). Please notice the 3rd service option on Easter Sunday.

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