This past week I saw a picture my eight year old god-daughter drew. In her picture she depicted the hill of crucifixion with three crosses on it - it read: Where He Died... The End. And then, in the bottom right hand corner in rather small font it read: (or is it?). What a brilliant picture, 'Where He Died... The End... (Or Is It)?' This is Holy Week beginning with the joy and bold proclamation of Palm Sunday that soon gives way to a world thick with tension and conflict; fierce with passion, with flickering hope, with overwhelming fatigue and yet pulsing with energy, with intimacy and betrayal, brutality, violence, profound failure, with LOVE, victory, praise, lament, loss, death, grief, disorientation and resurrection - new life.
It begins as Jesus enters into Jerusalem on a donkey just as Zechariah prophesied: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout Aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your King comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." I love this particular bit - "your King comes to you triumphant and victorious and humble and riding on a donkey" (hint: he is not an ordinary King). This King, the Son of God rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a war horse clad in armour with top ranking army officials around him. Our King comes not by might or power but in the Spirit of the Lord to claim the freedom of all people. A large crowd followed him out of Jericho, and more had been gathering from the wayside, from villages, they were crying out for mercy and declaring Him to be the Son of David, the Lord, and he was healing them. They were moved beyond words to action; they threw down their cloaks, cut down branches from trees and began to wave them. They went before him and behind him, they shouted: "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" Their cries could be heard from far off, before they even entered the city, they were proclaiming Jesus: Emmanuel, God with us. It must have been quite the parade!
Jesus will enter Jerusalem and the scene will rapidly change. He walks into the temple, the place he had known as a young boy, where he sat with teachers and learned from them. And what he sees enrages him: "he saw moneychangers buying and selling, vendors hawking doves for those who had come from the countryside to make sacrifices" with emotion coursing through him - he drives out the buyers and sellers, he throws over the tables of money changers. All blind and the lame in the streets clamour in to the temple to see Jesus and he heals them. The children cry out: 'Hosanna to the Son of David!" The chief priests and Scribes are angry, they are threatened, humiliated even. How dare he come into the temple and do this? Jesus leaves the city. The tensions are rising, religious leaders are questioning his authority and trying to undermine him. Jesus will not be tricked, duped or stupified by their questions. His words are potent: "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him." The religious leaders are making a case against him, he has broken their rules, he has publicly spoken out against them! He is hanging out with the wrong people, in fact he is often found in the company of unclean, sick and decidedly un-holy people! He is speaking of giving to those in need, of sharing with others! He speaks of forgiveness and of loving your enemy! The religious leaders and the rulers of the day feel that this must stop. This Jesus movement threatens to undo everything that keeps them in their places of power and prestige. And so people are plotting against him behind closed doors, whispering in back rooms, pointing, asking questions and making accusations.
This week we pick up the story in Matthew 26, as we will have read the Palm Sunday account upstairs. This is a long text so in each of your lessons this week they have included either story cards to be ordered after hearing the condensed story or breaking up the story into sections and working together to create a time line of events. I think both of these methods are effective ways to make sense of Holy Week for students. I will be sure there are enough story cards for students in grades 1 and 2 and I will set out the necessary supplies. For the older students it might be helpful to write out the timeline of events in advance on the mural paper (I am happy to do this for the older classes if this is helpful). Then each student can take one event and summarize it for the rest of the class. Perhaps individually or as a group students can come up with a symbol that represents what happened at that event and draw it on the timeline. With the older groups I think it might be best to begin at the start of Matthew 26 this way we can include the Anointing at Bethany, a beautiful expressions of love in the midst of this dark time. If you would prefer to spend more time with one of the events in this text as opposed to a survey of events, please feel free to do that and be sure to let me know how I can support you in that.
As we enter into this week we allow the story to work on our imaginations and our hearts; we invite the Holy Spirit to teach us and lead us - children and adults together. We process this Sunday morning with joy because Jesus is the Son of God, he is the King, our Saviour, our Rescuer. We also process in the shadow of Good Friday with the reminder of our own fickle nature, the ways in which we fail to love God with our heart, soul and mind. Remembering that the palm crosses we wave will become next years ashes, imposed on our foreheads in the shape of the cross. We process in the grace of God who has forgiven us and rescued us and won for us freedom and life!
You will notice the altar cloths are red for Palm/Passion Sunday. On Thursday at the Tennebrae service the alter will be stripped, and on Easter Sunday the altar cloths will be White. Encourage the children to look for changes in the church throughout the week.
Please remind students to come the the Cross Walk with their families on Friday morning at 10 am.
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