Palm Sunday - Going the Distance (from Hosanna to "Crucify Him")

 Palm Sunday
April 10, 2022
Fr. Phil Eberhart

 

Going the Distance


Welcome to Palm Sunday and Holy Week this week.  Lot’s going on in the service this morning, so this will be a bit shorter.

 

I want to consider for a few moments the distance from Palm Sunday to Good Friday!  Already in today’s service we’ve experienced that shift from Hosanna, Lord!  To  “Crucify Him!”  Crucify Him!!”

It’s a pretty stark contrast in one morning … or one week!

I guess it speaks of the nature of our flesh and of the nature of our devotion.

 

I was at a retreat during my college days at ORU and we were in the Ozark mountains over by Eureka Springs, ARK at a retreat center that was perched on a mountain top at the head of this long valley that stretched off to the north of us.  That morning at 6 am I took some coffee and went out on the back porch only to find the whole valley view shrouded in fog.  I sat down with my coffee and bible and opened to Hosea, the prophet of Israel who acted out his prophecy – by marrying a prostitute.

As I read the story I came to chapter six where we see the contrast of God’s Hesed Love – Unfailing Love and their wavering, uncertain love.  Chapter six starts out well – with God’s people saying – “Come and let us return to the Lord, for He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. … So let us know and become personally acquainted with Him; let us press on to know and understand fully the greatness of the Lord; to honor, heed, and deeply cherish Him.

And God replys to them…

O Ephraim, what shall I do with you? 
O Judah, what shall I do with you?
For your wavering loyalty and kindness are transient,
like the morning cloud
and like the dew that goes away early.

At that moment, as I stood on the veranda overlooking this valley the cloud, chased by the rising heat of the sun that early morning, was being chased out of the valley!  And the sun coming through the surrounding trees highlighted the fog exiting the valley overhead.

“Your love is like the morning cloud and like the dew that goes early away!”

 

My friends, this Palm Sunday morning I just want to highlight the short distance from Hosanna to Crucify Him!

The truth – a hard and inconvenient truth – is that we are extremely fickle!  It’s like dew on the grass in the morning that disappears in the heat of the morning – and not very long into the morning!  The clouds that melt away with the heat of the day are a perfect picture of our kind of love for God.  His is steadfast, unfailing HESED and ours … well…

 

So this week, I once again renew the invitation we heard five weeks ago, at the head of Lent on Ash Wednesday and the first Sunday morning:

I invite you to a holy lent … a holy, HOLY WEEK!  Through fasting and prayer, through reading and meditation on the verses we’ve read and heard this morning from the Passion Gospels;  I invite you to immerse yourself – allow yourself to marinate in the week between Palm Sunday and the Triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and Good Friday, His trial, betrayals, the abandonment of his friends and followers (while he was the leading “messianic” hopeful!)  Well, “so much for that idea”! 

Read the stories again and place yourself along the Via Dolorosa – where are you in the crowd?  By the way there is no good place to be – no place where you can maintain your innocence in the face of this atrocity!  The closest you can come is Jesus own mother, or the women who wept or the Cyrenian who was forced by the Romans to carry His cross for him.  Those are the best seats in the house.  No one else in the picture is innocent here.  And the cast list is long! The disciples who ran, Peter who followed yet denied him almost to his face, the soldiers, the Pharisees, Pilate, washing his hands.

The palm branches are changed into crosses.  Really, need we say more.

Join us this week as you can.

 

Thursday night at the Last Supper.

 

Friday Noon or night at the Stations of the Cross – the walk on the Via Dolorosa.

 

Saturday night in The Great Vigil – that traces the whole journey of God’s HISTORY with mankind – the entrance of the LIGHT into the darkness – the chant of the EXULTET – the stories of God’s creation and Abraham – the Jews in Egypt and the Passover – One of the most ancient services in the whole Church.

 

 

Come and See.

Go the Distance:  from Hosanna to Crucify Him – from My God, My God and It is Finished to He is Risen.

 

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made, and you forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.