A lot of hopes just do not pan out, or don’t pan out the way we thought they would, or pan out so late that our hearts can barely survive the wait.
Palm Sunday is a heartbreaking day right before everything breaks. It is about hope deferred, a snapshot of the moment we want something so badly, right before it disappears.
My heart hurts for these tired Palm Sunday people, who finally thought they had something to celebrate - a big change, a big shift in life, freedom and flourishing they had been waiting for, something big and new from Someone that they trusted. They were so ready for spring.
I started Lent talking about how it can be hard to observe Lenten practices of repentance in spring. Spring is a hopeful time, and Lent is a serious march through sorrow towards death.
But on Palm Sunday, Lent as a spring observance makes sense. We know that we’re in Lent, and that we’re walking towards Good Friday. The people who followed Jesus did not know this. They thought that after walking in darkness for a long time, they had finally seen a great light. They thought Jesus was the end of the long winter of occupation and humiliation and sorrow. They thought the redemption of the whole world would be tangible, that they would be able to taste and smell and touch it.
Seeing Jesus felt like spring was finally here. Jesus represented flourishing not just for themselves, but for the world.
What a big, good hope everyone had for Jesus.
I don’t think the expectation that Jesus would liberate these people was a foolish expectation, or that they deserve the “tut-tuts” we give them with our 20/20 hindsight vision. Jesus had not talked specifically with the crowds about his death and resurrection, so they couldn’t have known. Even when he talked about it with his disciples, they didn’t understand where to put this wild and weird new idea into their old theological toolkit. Prophets like Moses and Elijah had been external, liberating forces for freedom. And Jesus straight up inauagurates his ministry reading from Isaiah, claiming he was bringing good news to the poor and coming to set the captives free. What were they supposed to expect and believe?? The people who followed Jesus believed what they had been lead to believe, with the information they had been given.
When we read about Palm Sunday, we also assume these were the same people who later yell “crucify him!”, but there is no textual evidence that these are the same set of people. (Luke and John explicitly say the people who brought him to Pilate chant for him to be crucified; Matthew and Mark say the religious leadership “stirred up the crowd” to call for Jesus, not Barabbas. None of them make a direct link between the Palm Sunday crowds and the crowds demanding Jesus’ death).
This exegetical leap isn’t necessarily unfaithful to the text. But there are other faithful ways to read the story of Palm Sunday, ways that are faithful to these hopeful people who wanted so much, and hoped so much, and loved so deeply.
They longed for the redemption of the whole world, like us. They thought they could imagine what redemption would look like, like us. They put their whole trust in Jesus, like us.
There are so many tangible things we need, and Jesus does not always provide in the way we hope he will, or that it seems Scripture promises he’s willing and able to.
There are so many tangible things the world needs that Jesus does not always provide for, or that it seems Scripture promises he’s willing and able to.
Hope differed makes the heart so weary.
We can be so harsh to these hopeful Palm Sunday people. This can tend our own egos, we who are never mislead about the Gospel! But it can also make us unnecessarily harsh with ourselves, too - when we hope and are disappointed and beat ourselves up for being “stupid,” or when we make a theological misstep, or when we just don’t see Jesus clearly.
It can be hard to know the will of God, and sometimes we’re wrong. It can be hard to know what Jesus is doing in the world, and sometimes we’re wrong. It can be hard to know how to hope, or what to hope for, and sometimes we’re so hungry for hope that we place our hopes into the wrong place.
Being a person is really hard, and we will be wrong, not because we’re bad or stupid, but because it can be hard to understand where God is leading us, individually and as a whole world.
And all we can do is be generous with our broken hearts, after our Palm Sunday celebrations that felt so certain and filled with hope.
A more generous exegesis of these people will help us be more generous with ourselves when we make false steps. It will help us be more generous with our neighbor when they misinterpret Jesus, because sometimes we make assumptions that aren’t unfaithful to the text - but maybe aren’t true to what God is doing in the world after all.
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I like to imagine these Palm Sunday people were in the upper room on the day of Pentecost.
I like to imagine that there was overlap, the people who listened to Jesus preach on the mountainside, the people who had big hopes on Palm Sunday, the people with broken hearts on Good Friday, and the one hundred and twenty people waiting together for God knows what on Pentecost.
They were waiting with hope, again, but probably holding their hope differently than before. They still wanted the redemption of the whole world, they still wanted flourishing for themselves and their neighbor, and they still believed Jesus would be the one who would bring it to them - but they didn’t have any idea what it would look like anymore. The way we wanted to go is closed. The ideas we had for flourishing are not going to come to pass.
So together, they waited.
It’s a long time in between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but even longer in between Palm Sunday and Pentecost - in between the death of one hope, and any understanding of what the new hope will look like.
And this is where we find ourselves in the story! We are also Palm Sunday people, loving Jesus, following Jesus, but never seeing Jesus as clearly as we could, because we still “see through a glass darkly.” We’re in-between knowing what the old hope was at Pentecost, and not knowing what the new heaven and the new earth will look like. We’re holding old texts up to our current experience of Christ, trying to discern what this work of shalom will look like and how we can join it.
We’re going to be wrong a lot. We’re going to lose hope a lot. We’re going to wonder what redemption will look like and if it’s coming - a lot.
Let’s be generous with these Palm Sunday people this morning, instead of judgmental, because they hoped greatly, and loved Jesus so much, and it is a hard thing to hope so much and then lose so much.
Let’s be generous with ourselves and each other, too.
May this last week of Lent be marked by generousity, for the failures of those around us as well as our own failures and missteps and misplaced hopes and misplaced egos and ways we did not see ourselves or Jesus clearly.
May this be a generous Holy Week, letting humility and generosity lead us into greater compassion for others and for ourselves while we wait together to see what redemption will look like.
been thinking about this a lot in the last several months as I try to find a place in a new state and this shifting political landscape. What if liberation is something concrete and something we are called to hope for, *and* it doesn't look like we think it will? After so much exhaustion over the last several years, that actually feels joyful and humbling to me.
Thank you for this 🌿