Over the next week, I’ll be sharing parts of an original Easter poem.  I hope you will journey with me from Jerusalem to Golgotha to Sunday. We need a resurrection this year more than ever!  May God’s serendipitous sense of life, joy, hope, and love meet us in the days to come!

Peace! 

Bob 

A HOLY WEEK POEM

Bob Stillerman
April 2020

PART ONE: PALM SUNDAY

Back then, like every year, the people flocked to Jerusalem
To the celebrate God’s age-old glory;
One glory in particular:
An escape was made ready,
A pharaoh’s grip was loosened,
A dark angel passed by while
Faithful men and women marked their doors,
And ate lamb with bitter herbs.
And amidst the Pharaoh’s cries
They made their leave;
There wasn’t even time to let the bread rise!

You know the rest:
They wandered and wondered for forty years.
God was there though:
Cloud by day and pillar of fire by night
Seas were parted; Armies were sacked;
The people sang and danced, grumbled and complained;
God gave them manna, and water, and eventually the law.
But most of all, God gave them space:
Space to become God’s people.
They crossed over Jordan into a new land.
A land where God and people were bound in covenant,
A land of generous soil,
A land of hospitality,
A land full of possibility and potential,
A land where God’s people could finally be God’s people!

So the crowds flocked to Jerusalem:
To rekindle the flames of God’s glory,
To stop and say thanks for all they had,
To remind their children of God’s story,
In past, in present, in future.

On that first Palm Sunday,
Jesus, the One we call Messiah,
Came to Jerusalem, too!

Over the years, the legend has grown,
But when Jesus entered those gates,
He came with the humility of a servant.

Sure, you could most certainly hear Pilate
On the other side of town,
Coming through a more prominent gate,
The heavy hooves of his war horse trot, trot, trotting,
And the drums of his army, bang, bang, banging,
And the purple edges of his banners, flap, flap, flapping in the wind.

Jesus, on the other hand,
Came riding on a donkey,
A tired, old, donkey.
No sword on his belt, no robe or crown, no army.
Just a makeshift parade,
A rag-tag band of believers,
A few dozen women and men with
Nothing more than the clothes on their backs,
And the faith in their hearts.
And as Jesus trotted down the Mount of Olives
And into all the chaos of a city festival,
A slow clap turned into a chant:
Shouts of “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna,
Blessed is the One
Who comes in the name of the Lord!”
And they laid down their cloaks before him,
And they grabbed palm branches,
And waved them high and often.

This was not coerced.
This was not financed by the emperor’s taxes.
This was serendipitous:
A realization that a true king,
A true leader was in their midst.
They longed for him to ride into that valley
And restore a land before all of this captivity.
A land where Israel’s prominence was reflected
On the battlefield; on the trade routes,
In the sparkle of palace gems and rounded arches.
And perhaps just a little bit of the spoils for themselves, too

There was elation. We feel it to this day.
It’s easy to stand atop the mountain
And envision how God should reclaim Jerusalem.
How fitting, Jesus will best Pilate in the
Same way Moses bested Pharaoh!
And many years from now
We’ll tell the tale; We’ll pray the seder.
Yes, the moment has come!

Unfortunately, reality reared its ugly head.
The confident believers dwindled in the week ahead.
Perhaps they didn’t expect the jeers; the sheer power of Caesar’s might;
Perhaps they never expected a trial, or betrayal, or for Jesus
To simply walk right into Golgotha, and not even raise a hand.
This was not the kind of leader they expected.
And on a violent Friday, all that remained of the Hosanna chorus
Were a dozen or so women, who waited till the end,
Their shouts of joy, now cries of grief.

Yes, Palm Sunday is a time of joy.
But it’s a tempered joy.
The story reveals that Jesus will not
Reclaim Jerusalem in the way we expect.
Jesus will not do what’s easy.
Jesus will do what he must.

And today, a surreal Palm Sunday,
We find ourselves entrapped in a virtual reality.
Our keyboards and mousepads have replaced
Our cloaks and branches.
And we too, want to shout loud Hosannas.
For we know, it’s Jesus, the Word Made Flesh,
The very presence of God, manifested in a being just like us,
That can reveal life in lifeless times.
And high upon that mountain,
We’re ready for it to all happen, NOW

But just as Jesus had to go through Friday
To get to Sunday, so must we.
Our journey’s a parabola.
Friday’s gonna be dark, and Saturday, too.
But the light shines in the darkness,
And the darkness will not overcome it.
Sunday’s coming!!!
Remember that, when the cheers die down,
When the palm branches wither and turn brown,
When the gathered scatter,
When the faithful weep,
When hope seems lost,
We’re gonna climb the hill, y’all!!!
Sunday’s coming!!!
Hosanna, sing loud hosannas
Cause’ Sunday’s coming y’all!!!