Palm Sunday.
What were the people expecting that fateful day in Jerusalem? The messiah. Since the time of the great Kings of Israel and Judah, Saul and David and Solomon, the Jews had fallen into despair. Here were a people imprisoned literally by the Roman occupation and spiritually by a God as foretold by the prophets they would suffer for their wavering faith. This lone man, Jesus of Nazareth, held their promise of freedom. He defied authority, by proclaiming a New Kingdom of God, proclaiming the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Had not the prophet Isaiah proclaimed that one would be sent who “would be used by Yahweh to give light and salvation unto the world’ (Isa. 49:6), just as Jesus had done? Had not Isaiah said one would come “to liberate the suffering” (Isa. 61:1) “to guide the thirsty to water” (Isa. 44) and to “set all people free” (Isa. 42:7)? All as Jesus had proclaimed.
The coincidences were just too much for a people poor, hungry and enslaved. Their spirits ached for a new message, a new beginning, a new hope. The people wanted to belief in a savior, even though Jesus spoke of a different kingdom, they saw him as the savior for them now. Jesus, perhaps expressing his own darkness, knew he would die for the message he was bringing to the center of power. His expectation was death.
So perhaps it is for all of us. We elected Barrack Obama on the same message of hope. We placed upon him the mantle of a savior. And then, as with all leaders, we realized that he was not a savior, but a human being dealing with a complex and fractured world. Jesus would die in this story of Holy week. For a while we thought our dreams of a president who could deliver had died as well. A part of them has. We are all, I think, a bit disappointed in what he has been able, even willing to do to alleviate the ache of so many. But with the passage of Health Care Reform, as imperfect and inadequate as it is, we have some our dream back. The new loan principal forgiveness program announced by the President last week is yet another bright ray. Perhaps some relief is coming.
Not a moment too soon. Because just as those ancient Hebrews who placed such faith in Jesus on Palm Sunday knew all too well, economic injustice is the status quo of empires; Roman or American. Our poor, grow poorer every day. Our families, indeed even some in this church, have lost jobs, most certainly income. The minimum wage is still woefully below a living wage. We have so far to go. And yet our hope is strong. We still have Great Expectations. Easter Sunday always follows Good Friday.
With Grace and Grit, John
