Dear PPPC,

I miss the “alleluias.”

I think you miss them too…

How do I know this? Last Sunday, when I announced that the flowers The Murray’s gave were to the Glory of God and in celebration of the arrival of Spring…you “Whoo-hooed!” And then after more joyful announcements, more whoo-hoos! As if we are longing to shout! As if we are longing for joy. I know that we are.

Well, we’re almost there. Just over a week until the alleluias return. In this way, their absence is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, calling our attention to this different season. Calling our attention to the seriousness of the week ahead of us. This is the week that we experience the story that changed everything – where expectations are overturned, hope feels lost, and then new life rises when no one sees it coming.

We’re almost there, but not yet. This week we get to shout, not Alleluia, but Hosanna!

We’re almost there. Jesus is almost there. This Sunday is Palm Sunday. Jesus enters Jerusalem. We will sing, and worship, and we will wave palms.

Have you ever wondered why it’s palms? Why not branch Sunday? Or clothing Sunday? After all, the crowds laid clothes and branches on the ground before him….

About 150 years prior to Jesus, Judas Maccabeeus led the Jewish people to victory over the Seleucid dynasty. After the victory, the crowds celebrated by waving palm branches. To commemorate the victory, Judas Maccabeeus stamped an image of palm branches into their coins which symbolized victory for the Jewish people over their oppressors.

When the Jewish people are under foreign rule again (150 years later), they wave their palms in the air shouting, “Hosanna!”…which translated means, “Save us now!” When the crowds shouted “Hosanna!,” they were saying something significant to Jesus. In effect, “Rescue us and rescue us like we’ve been rescued before.”

But Jesus rescues us in ways we often don’t understand…through the surprising and apparent powerlessness of the cross. The crowds wanted deliverance from the power of Rome, but Jesus was about to deliver the entire world from the power of sin and death.

When we wave palms as followers of Jesus Christ, we do so with both a similar and a different spirit. We wave the palms with the same honest cry of “Save us now!” for there is so much from which we long to be saved. So too, do we wave our palms with a resurrection perspective, joyfully trusting in God’s way of salvation in Christ.

We’re almost there…but not yet.

Let us not rush through this week ahead. Although we’re longing for alleluias, in more than one way, let us once again fully enter the story at the foundation of our faith. Let us first join with the crowds at the roadside, then with the disciples at the table, and let us journey all the way to the foot of the cross, where Jesus is crucified.

And then, Sunday morning. Oh what a glorious morning. When the sun breaks the horizon and Jesus…

Not yet.

Soon, and very soon.

May grace surprise you, kindly, along the way,
Pastor Molly