One of the popular traditional hymns for Palm Sunday was written by Henry Milman, a Victorian dean of St Paul’s. He wrote dramatic poems and romantic verse dramas, as well as some of the first studies of biblical history to root Scripture in the culture of its day (he gave offence by describing Abraham as “a nomad sheikh”). In his Palm Sunday hymn, Ride on, Ride on in Majesty, he sees the Palm Sunday procession as a poignant, funeral procession ”” “in lowly pomp ride on to die”. Indeed, that is how this Holy Week, which begins on Palm Sunday, unfolds.
If there was an expectation among the Palm Sunday crowds that this was the beginning of a revolution in which Jesus would drive out the oppressive Roman occupiers, it was not to be. The week that begins with Palm Sunday moves inexorably through ever darker moments: the Last Supper, the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (the garden of the pressing out of the olives), betrayal, arrest, torture, mocking, scourging and a trial that shows both religious and political leaders as utterly unconcerned with truth (as Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, asks dismissively, “what is truth?”).
Pilate found out what truth was when Christ arose from the tomb on Easter Sunday. Praise God for His wonderful free gift. This I also know; you must accept His gift on His terms.
Yes, Harvey…when we accept His gift, we also set our faces toward Jerusalem, wrestle in Gesthemane; we crucify our flesh through repentance, confession and reconciliation, and through the power of the Resurrection, we rise up from the grave in new life.
Sin has been defeated and propitiation made for us by Jesus, Christ, our Lord.
May the Blessings of the Risen Lord be with all of us who post and read T1:9 as we prepare to commemorate the events that led to his death and celebrate His triumphal resurrection from the tomb “on the third day”, bringing life everlasting to all who accept Him!