A reflection by Danny Schweers for April 2, 2023.

“Poignant” may be the word I am looking for to describe the triumphal entry by Jesus into Jerusalem just a week before he was crucified. I recognize the joy in the story but I cannot hear it without also anticipating the suffering that follows.

The people who were gathered in Jerusalem for Passover celebrated Jesus’s arrival. They expected great things. They welcomed the Son of Man as king. The people celebrating did not know what was to come. Would they be celebrating if they knew? If they knew what Jesus was riding into, his blood upon the spearhead, betrayal and crucifixion so close at hand?

I challenge you to think of others, people in your lifetime who inspired hope but who were cut down in the prime of their ministry. Is it not bittersweet to see video footage of them being welcomed, of their words being applauded, of their presence being celebrated, knowing their lives will be cut short?

Even though Palm Sunday is followed by Good Friday, I still celebrate it as a joyous event. I am not like the Pharisees in the crowd who admonished Jesus to silence the crowd. Jesus replied to them, “I tell you, … if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19:40). Christians are not silent on Palm Sunday. We cry out in praise.

If you will, take a few moments to read Richard Wilbur’s “A Christmas Hymn.” In four verses, he celebrates Jesus’s birth, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Jesus’s return in glory. And at the center of every verse is this twice repeated line: “And every stone shall cry.” The stones cry in celebration. They cry out even though they are heavy and dull. They cry for God’s love refused again. Finally, the stones cry in praise of the child by whose descent among us the worlds are reconciled.

The story of Palm Sunday does prefigure Good Friday but suffering and death is not the end of the story. It goes on to Easter Sunday, Jesus made whole again, our hopes made whole again. Yes, on Palm Sunday we know suffering is close at hand, but we also know the unimagined triumph that follows the agony and disappointment.

What hope has been cut short? What life? What promise? I tell you, that is not the whole story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Danny N. Schweers chairs SsAM’s Communication Committee and is an active photographer and writer. Click here to visit his website and make a comment.

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