I’ve always found Palm Sunday to be one of the most interesting Sundays of the year. We begin the service in some location that is not in the worship space, with a reading of Jesus entering Jerusalem on that fateful day long ago, when the crowds spread palm branches along his pathway.

It is a time of great exultation, and a time when joy and excitement is literally all around. In fact, Jesus himself cautions those who want to shut it down, that even should they try, the very rocks and stones themselves would start to sing. The very height of the popularity of jesus is on display. The promised one of God is among us! And then we recreate this joyful procession. Waving palm branches and singing, we enter the Church and begin a joyful worship celebration.

And then the readings begin to hit us. The cautionary words of the prophets. The deep analysis of the New Testament on what the work of Jesus is all about. A Psalm that begins joyfully, but then quickly turns to one of the greatest despair.

And then the Gospel Reading thrusts us back to the night of the arrest. The trial. The false witnesses. The whipping. The petty squabbling over who has jurisdiction in the legal case. The agony. The abandonment. The feeling of utter failure that Jesus seems to give into. The humiliation. The disappearance of friends in the face of adversity. The death.

How can something that started out so wonderfully, end up being so wrong?

And isn’t this just what each of us undergoes in our own lives? Oh, sure, not literally. I”ve never been arrested, put on trial, and executed. But I’ve had the very best that I’ve had to offer, turn to a mess – right there before me. I’ve seen my best laid plans go awry. I realized in the depths of my own despair, that there was no one that I could turn to, save God alone. And He seemed to be pretty far off.

Palm Sunday is the day when each one of us, if we are truly being honest, can most identify with the mission and work of Jesus. Try it out this year. Come see how God resolves this very situation. Relive again, all that God has in mind for us, when we admit we have made a mess of things.

Fr. David