EVENSONG, PALM SUNDAY, Year A: March 16 2008

Preacher: Fr Eric Simmons

The account of Jesus as we have it in the Gospels is basically built around journeys and journeying. Jesus and His inner circle of followers are depicted as travellers; of no fixed abode; on the move.

In the beginning the journeys are local to Galilee, particularly to the villages and towns around the Lake, with an occasional excursion further afield. These are the early days, and the mood is confident and sunny. There are the parables — Jews love to tell and hear stories — there are the pithy, memorable sayings, the miracles, and a lot of talk about the Kingdom, what it is like, and how to enter it. There are the crowds, the mounting excitement, the cut and thrust of debate with the religious authorities — another popular entertainment: Jews like a good discussion.

But then it changes. It seems that perhaps Jesus begins to realise that this is not what ultimately He is meant to be about and that something other, something altogether more radical and subversive, is required of Him if He is to witness to the truth of the Father's unconditional love for humankind. In the second of the Gospel narratives Jesus withdraws from the crowds, lowers His public profile, and spends more time with the disciples on their own: there are fewer miracles now, fewer parables, and instead of speaking about the Kingdom, He talks about a death — His own death — He speaks of things which human beings do not care to talk about or hear: about failure and humiliation, about treachery cowardice and fear, about being pushed to the margins, to the edge of things, and dying as a criminal. The Cross begins to cast its long shadow across the sunlit hills of Galilee.

It is not surprising that the disciples cannot take this kind of talk, and they protest vigorously. They want the Galilean days to continue, the crowds, the popularity, the wonderful stories, the laughter, the signs and mighty works. But Jesus sternly rebukes them, and insists that there is a task to be undertaken, a destiny to be fulfilled, a ransom to be paid, burdens to be eased and lifted, and chains to be broken. His hand is set to the plough, and there can be no looking back, only going forward, a journey to be made. And so the journey to Jerusalem.

St Luke, in his account of the things concerning Jesus, marks this change of mood with a striking phrase. He writes: 'When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem'. There is an unmistakable solemnity about the way he puts it. The moment is significant, awesome.

And St Mark in his Gospel gives us in a vivid miniature something of the mood of that journey to Jerusalem. He tells us that 'they were on the road going to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed' (a favourite word of Mark's, meaning something akin to profound dismay), and those who followed were afraid. They were frightened; they sensed impending disaster, sensed that something was closing in on them, some nameless dread, something that they did not understand. And Jesus walks ahead of them alone. Sent by the Father, He goes to His Passion in the loneliness of His spirit.

A journey. St John begins his account of the Passion with that very same image, seeing the whole of Our Lord's life in the flesh as a journey. 'Now before the Passover,' he writes, 'Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father [...] knowing that He had come from GOD and was going to GOD.'

And today, Palm Sunday, we fall in behind the Master as He makes His way to Jerusalem, the place of sacrifice, the place of expiation and of atonement. Jesus invites us to share His journey, to travel with Him along the way of the Cross: He invites us to go with Him, to keep company with Him as He makes His Passover to the Father and the Kingdom — opening the way for us to follow Him there.

The excitement of the first Palm Sunday was brief: the interest it aroused short-lived — a few days later everybody had forgotten all about it: indeed the 'Hosannas' of Palm Sunday by Friday morning would be replaced by the recriminations of a mob howling frenziedly for blood.

Once more in Word and Sacrament, in Liturgy and Symbol, in Music and in Silence, the drama of Holy Week unfolds around us.

But we are not meant to be merely awe-struck spectators of these things, standing reverently at a distance. Jesus invites us to go with Him, to be with Him, to learn His way of loving, who 'having loved His own who were in the world, loved them to the end' ... 'to the end', for that is love's will; that is love's way; 'to the end', for that is is love's endeavour, love's expense: the Triumph and the Tragedy.

It is significant that in St Mark's Gospel the last miracle takes place just before Palm Sunday. It is the healing of blind Bartimaeus. The Evangelist tells us that having received his sight he 'followed Jesus on the way'.

GOD grant to us that our sight may be fully given to us, that the 'eyes of our heart' may be opened, that the heart's vision may be unsealed, that we may see the Lord in His Passion and follow Him in His way of loving.