Palm/Passion Sunday

I’ve been learning to knit over the last few months. One thing that I’ve discovered is that you can’t knit right, you can’t grab a little thread of yarn with a pointy stick and pull it through a little loop, if there is no tension. The thread of yarn needs tension, the loop needs tension, even the point stick needs just the right tension, or the whole thing just doesn’t work.
Today is perhaps the day of greatest tension in the church year. Here we sit between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the day when he was welcomed as a king, and his humiliation and rejection, his suffering and disgrace, his death on the cross. We have just reenacted that triumph, carrying our palms into the sanctuary, parading and shouting “Hosannas.” Yet we are still in Lent, and we still hold back our Hallelujahs. As you hear the Gospel story, literally sitting in the tension between the two voices of our readers, listen for some of the tensions in the story: the woman who anoints Jesus for his death, even as he lives; Judas who has betrayed Jesus, yet still calls him Rabbi and kisses him; Jesus who knows that he has been betrayed, yet breaks bread with his betrayer; Peter, James and John whose spirit is willing, but whose flesh is weak; Peter, who wants to stay faithful to Jesus, but cannot stop his denials.
As with my knitting, Life is impossible without tensions. Conscious tensions of day to day: how do I raise an independent and inquisitive child, while keeping her safe and me sane? Subtle tensions, at the back of my mind, yet governing my life: money isn’t everything, really just paper and numbers, but it is important to nearly every decision. Tensions forced to our attention only by illness or tragedy: how do I live my life fully, knowing that I am each day moving closer to death? So much time and effort is spent trying to resolve these things. Yet they are inescapable. We must live in the tension.
In the Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, we heard about some of the tensions that Christ holds: he was in the form of God, yet in human form; he was equal to God, yet he took the form of a slave; he was humbled and then exalted. Our God holds the tensions for us. Fully human yet fully divine, as Paul describes; speaking, yet listening, as Isaiah describes; entering Jerusalem in triumph, only to die in disgrace, as Mark describes. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom has come near, yet we pray for God’s kingdom to come to us again and again. Our sins have been washed clean by our baptism, so we are saints, yet we are captive to sin, so we are sinners. We move each day toward death; yet in Christ, in our baptisms, we have already died, so that we can live a new life. We are isolated, alone, individuals, yet in Christ we are one Body. And as Christ, as that one Body, we are able to hold the tensions. We can hold tensions that we do not know how to resolve. There are so many issues that tear us apart as a body: the interpretation of the Scriptures; the use of war and political power; the meaning of communion and who should receive it; the definition of marriage and who should be allowed it; the nature of ordained ministry and who should answer that call. Yet today, of all days, we are reminded that we have a God who can hold the tensions, who does not require us to find resolution, but who invites us to live with God in those tensions. And it is there, of all places, that we find the freedom to move forward together in tension. Today of all days, after the triumphal entry, and the harrowing death, we are left at the end of the readings with a God entombed, a God who has died and been laid to rest. And how do we respond? By stepping forward together in the midst of that sorrow, and celebrating the Resurrection, by coming as a Body to the Communion Table, by giving thanks together to a God who would be humbled to the point of death, so that we can be free.