On Palm Sunday hopes

Just under a year ago I visited Jerusalem, in slightly more luxurious circumstances than Jesus and his disciples did 2000 years ago. One thing I soon found out was it is a very crowded place. I have vivid memories of the Church of the Holy Sepulchure being packed with tourists and pilgrims.

In the story of the first Palm Sunday we read of Jesus being greeted by crowds carrying palm branches (John 12: 12 - 16). Why palm branches? Well, apparently they had become a nationalist symbol in the centuries preceding Christ. The words the crowds shouted 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!' and 'Blessed is the King of Israel' shows that the Jews greeted Jesus as the promised Messiah. 

The Messiah the Jews wanted and expected was a military leader, one who would free them from Roman domination. They wanted to be free from oppression. But Jesus subverted their expectations, and instead fulfilled another prophecy, by Zechariah, that told of a peaceful king who entered Jerusalem not on a war horse but on a donkey. This king, Zechariah tells us, does not intend to make war (Zechariah 9: 9 - 10) but 'will proclaim peace to the nations'.

 Jesus came to do God's will, not the Jews and not ours. Often God does not work as we want; he does not always answer the prayers as we expect, because he has a bigger and better plan. I wonder what would have happened if God had answered the Jews' prayer for a military Messiah? A free homeland for the Jews 20 centuries before it was meant to come about? That would have been great, but one thing is for sure: what happened at Easter was far, far greater than that! God's plans are far greater than our own. Maybe you feel God is not answering your prayers at the moment. If so just think: maybe he has a greater plan for you than you can ever imagine.

Joining in with the foolishness of God

When my husband was a young lad one day he was asked what he wanted to be. He replied, 'A smallholder'. His sister turned to him and said, 'You can't do that, it's not a proper job!'

Some years later, after we had been married two years we found a property with about two acres of land, and there we started our own smallholding. My husband kept the day job, while I stayed at home raising the children and caring for the animals. At weekends and during the holidays my husband did the heavy work on the smallholding. We had hens, goats, pigs and a house cow called Chloe. It was hard work, but satisfying.

Eventually we had to move because of work and had to leave the smallholding behind. My husband always hoped to have a small farm, and, when he retired because of ill health we found the perfect place, a small farm in the North York Moors.

Sadly he became seriously ill shortly after we moved there, and died within a year. After he died my mother-in-law wrote me a letter. It was so hurtful I destroyed it and tried to forget it, but it went something like this, '...you always supported Peter and his hare-brained schemes...' It was so hurtful the way she ran down my recently departed husband that it took a real effort of will to forgive her. What we had seen as a way to become self-sufficient and live in harmony with nature she saw as foolishness. To her way of thinking what you did was get a good, highly paid job and then take a mortgage out for the biggest house you could find. It was all based on worldly achievement. Now, over ten years later, I live in a modest house, and I own it entirely. My children are also owner occupiers, and this is largely due to our modest lifestyle years ago, and to a large extent also due to the 'hare-brained schemes' of my husband. What appeared to be foolishness now, especially in the light of climate change, looks like wisdom.

In the first letter to the Corinthians the apostle Paul says 'the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are perishing it is the power of God (1 Cor: 1: 18). To many people being a Christian looks like foolishness, a matter of denying yourself fun and pleasure in the hope of a better life when you die. The life of radical service and non-violence that Christ preached seems foolish in a world of violence and greed (there are even some Christians who are not at all sure about the non-violence!). But this is the life we are called to live when we sign up as followers of Jesus. We are called to join in with his 'hare brained schemes'. I think I will stick with the 'foolishness' of the cross, wherever it takes me, 'for the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength' (1 Cor 1: 25).