Palm Sunday

There is a danger in believing this experience of our liturgy today…the entrance into Jerusalem with palm branches, cloaks on the path and hosanna’s being shouted is unique to Jesus.
I am sorry if this disappoints you, but this was the experience that happened every year.
Sukkot or the Festival of Booths is a Torah-commanded holiday celebrated for seven days from the 15th day of the month of Tishrei. It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals on which those Israelites who could were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. 
The first fruits of the harvest were carried in on the backs of donkeys, to offer to God in the temple.  It was the ultimate gift the Israelites could give.
The descent from the mount into Jerusalem is steep and worn, rutted and packed with years of palm branches having been laid down to pave the path for the gifts that were being brought to God.
But what is unique is that while everything was brought in with Joy, it rarely ended in tragedy, as was the experience of Jesus…God’s first fruit, if you will.
This is a Sunday of paradoxes, all in one liturgy.
From praise and joy filled expectation to utter complete disappointment, desperation and death on the cross by Jesus.
The crosses of palms that we hold are reminders of that paradox.
How many times have we lived that reality in our lives. 
From complete joy to complete frustration
It can happen in a moment, a day, a week, a year.
Things can go from great to horrific in milliseconds.
And we have no control.
I think one of the greatest joys of the Christian faith is that we understand and believe that the one whom we call God, in the person of Jesus, went through these experiences as well.
Christianity is one of the faith traditions that believes that God actually became one with us….one of us.
Not only above, not only other, but also brother, companion, co-sufferer.  Emanuel…God with us.
What that reality does is remove the barrier between us and God.
The Cross reminds us…there is no place that God has not or is not willing to go with us.  Even death!
So often we put God beyond our human condition and believe that we should not be experiencing what we are experiencing.
We believe that we should not be sad, angry, hurt, or hurting, physically, mentally, or emotionally. 
Yet God never promised that…God in Jesus simply promised to be with us always…even to the end of the world.
I wonder how often we are just certain that God could never understand us?
I believe God would say to us….surprise…been there, done that…you will make it, just hang on.