One of the things that life teaches us is that we can never really be certain of what the future will bring. Life is full of ups and downs as they say, we can be on top the world one minute and the next, because of something completely unexpected, we can down in the dumps, and vice versa.
And that’s something Jesus’ disciples must have experienced during the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. We can perhaps imagine their excitement as Jesus entered Jerusalem to cries of ‘Hosanna’ on Palm Sunday. Jesus himself knew what was going to happen just a few days later, but the Gospels tell us that his disciples didn’t understand this. So, as they went into Jerusalem with Jesus on that Sunday, they must have thought that all their aspirations were about to be realised. Jesus would enter Jerusalem, be acclaimed as the Messiah and his reign as God’s anointed king would begin. And they, of course, as his closest followers, would have a big part to play in the new order. They must have been ‘on top of the world’.
If we can imagine that, then we must also be able to imagine their crushing sense of disappointment as, just a few days later, all their hopes and dreams came crashing down when Jesus was arrested, condemned and put to death. It must have seemed to them like the end of the world. Certainly, it was the end of the world as they hoped and imagined it was going to be. So really, it’s not surprising that, when Jesus was arrested, they panicked and ran away in fear and confusion. Nor that Peter, who just a short time earlier had said he would die before he denied Jesus, did that very thing and denied, not only that he was a disciple of Jesus, but that he even knew him.
Of course, all this was completely turned on its head three days later when Jesus rose from the dead. The disciples were still confused and afraid, but who wouldn’t be if they saw someone who’d been executed, who’d been seen by some of their own friends and companions, dead and buried, and yet now they could see, unmistakably, this very same person alive again. But their confusion and fear would be replaced by a certainty and courage as they came to realise that Jesus’ reign had indeed begun and that they did have a big part to play in the new order and in what was a new world in which sin and even death had been defeated by the very things that had left them feeling so crushed with disappointment a short time earlier, Jesus’ arrest, condemnation and death on the cross. It wasn’t the new world they were expecting, but Jesus’ resurrection left them, not only on top of the world, but over and above the world; people whose minds and hearts were no longer set on worldly things but on heavenly, eternal things; people who were still in the world, but no longer of the world.
Perhaps we can liken our present situation to that of the disciples during those few days that we now know as Holy Week. A few weeks ago, whilst we may not have necessarily been on top of the world, we were , at least, leading our normal lives, doing the things we usually do and no doubt beginning to think about Palm Sunday and Holy Week and, beyond that, looking forward to Easter and our celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection. Then, quite suddenly all that changed. The outbreak of coronavirus has drastically changed our lives and we can’t do the things we usually do. We can’t go to our churches and so our plans for Holy Week and Easter have been stopped in their tracks. Many of us will have had other plans thwarted too as holidays and family get-togethers have had to be cancelled. Many people will have been looking forward to sporting events, but they’ve been cancelled too. And we’ve had panic, confusion and fear too; panic buying at shops, confusion about what we’re supposed to do and about the advice we’ve been given, and a fear of infection that’s led to a fear of getting too close to other people, even our own family members and our friends. So, this is a very difficult time for us, a time when many people, I’ve no doubt, will be feeling down in the dumps. And for some, whose loved ones fall ill and succumb to coronavirus, it will be the end of the world, both as they have known it, and expected it to be in the future.
But, whilst we go through this time of fear and uncertainty now, we need to keep our minds and hearts fixed on the future and look to the future with hope. We can’t be certain what that future will be because we don’t know what changes the outbreak of coronavirus will bring to our lives, whether that’s individually, as a nation, as a world, or as a Church. But one thing we can be sure of is that the God who turned the disciple’s despair to joy, their uncertainty to steadfast faith and their fear to courage, will be with us. And He who turned the sorrow and agony of the Good Friday into the joy and blessing of Easter Day, never ceases to offer us a future that is full of hope and promise, both in this life, and the next.
Amen.
You’ll find the Propers for Palm Sunday here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 