As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “You say so.” Then the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate asked him again, “Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.” But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.
Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. Then he answered them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate spoke to them again, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.
Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort. And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him. And they began saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him. After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!” In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.
When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid. (Mark 15:1-47)
Malcolm Guite is a poet. He serves as chaplain of Girton College in Cambridge. He writes beautiful books of poetry, and his elegant words are the thoughts a yearning spirit needs as fuel for prayer and reflection.
As we march, parading into the mysteries of Holy Week, his sonnet, Jesus Weeps, speaks to where we find ourselves today.
Jesus comes near
and he beholds the city
And looks on us
with tears in his eyes,
and
wells of mercy,
streams of love and pity
Flow from the fountain
whence all things arise.He loved us into life
and longs to gather
And meet with his beloved
face to face.How often has he called,
a careful mother,
And wept for our refusals
of his grace,
Wept for a world that,
weary with its weeping,
Benumbed and stumbling,
turns the other way;Fatigued compassion
is already sleeping
Whilst her worst nightmares
stalk the light of day.But we might waken yet,
and face those fears,
If we could see ourselves
through Jesus’ tears.
The Palm Sunday service is a strange liturgy. We begin with a parade, with partying and triumph and celebration, welcoming Jesus into the city, into the midst of the people. But, for us on the street corners, the people waving palms and crying, “Hosanna,” there is a huge disconnect.
The reason we are celebrating is not the reason Jesus parades through town. He knows the parade will end, but the walk will continue to Gethsemane, a cross, a tomb, and beyond.
We celebrate the arrival of love and hope and promises fulfilled. Jesus, with his face toward Jerusalem, rides on the back of a donkey to the center of town to accept the reality of death, to stare at the reality of morality and death, and to pray for the hope of spirits beyond, and in the week ahead, asks us to do the same; to leave the parade, and walk the walk, between the constant cross-streets of crucifixion and resurrection which is the ongoing reality of the journey of faith
Perhaps, on the back of that donkey, Jesus’ view is better than ours, but as we wave our palms in the air, Jesus points out that death is all around us. Crucifixion isn’t just on Good Friday. We are surrounded by it each and every day. As we look around the block, standing on the side of the road, at the sidewalks and crossroads of the city at everything that is going on, it is hard not to weep.
There is a lot to cry about.
Crucifixion continues in the Holy Land; a death created by politics and religious fervor, orchestrated by humiliation, dehydration, starvation, and suffocation. Jerusalem erupts. Hostages are taken. People are slaughtered. The cities are on fire. On his recent visit, Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, said, “People around the world are outraged about the horrors we are all witnessing in real-time. I carry the voices of the vast majority of the world. We have seen enough. We have heard enough.”
And Jesus weeps as he arrives in the city.
***
Columbine. Parkland. Sandy Hook. Uvalde. CNN reports that “there have been 16 school shootings in the United States so far this year. Three were on college campuses, and 13 were on K-12 school grounds. The incidents left nine people dead and at least 23 others injured.” Thoughts and prayers need to be answered with reflection and action coupled with the passing of sensible gun laws.
And Jesus weeps as he arrives in the city.
The war continues in Ukraine. An invasion by a foreign aggressor into a peaceful nation has been the thing of headlines for nearly two years now. Who thought we could ever become numb to the sight of another bombed-out, devastated city? But when we are exposed to death, over and over and over again, we forget about death’s power. Mass graves are dug. Apartment houses are struck, crumbling, and burning to the ground. Mothers cry for their children, grandfathers are lost to gunfire, tanks flatten parks and playgrounds, and a president aches for his people.
And Jesus weeps as he arrives in the city.
All along our southern borders, migrants swim into our submerged barbed-wire gates, seeking asylum, safety, and protection. The water turns red with blood; the powerless are sacrificed as those within the halls of power destroy the image of God for the sake of political strategizing.
And Jesus weeps as he arrives in the city.
Ezekiel, my favorite manic-depressive prophet, the prophet God found in the middle of a valley of dry bones, is commanded by God to, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.”
As we prepare to mark Jesus’ crucifixion, people of faith must follow Jesus into the city and see and do something about the crucifixions happening there. Jesus knows as he brings his friends into Jerusalem for Passover that he will be facing his own death.
As he asks us to remember body and blood, Jesus weeps, overwhelmed by the amount of death that surrounds him, which seems to be accepted as the norm.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say,‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
The march into Jerusalem, the parade led by Jesus on Palm Sunday, is a death march. But, as people of faith, we march with confidence. We know God’s hope for us. Will the parade end when Jesus is put to death or will we respond to Christ’s call to become his people, his hands, his feet, his heart in the world?
As followers of Christ, we pray for the strength to follow him into death, knowing that he goes ahead of us to prepare the way. As members of the Church, we worship together to discover how to step into the center of the dead and dying and bring the light of God’s resurrection hope. These may not be the truths that we are looking for today. It certainly was not what the friends and followers of Jesus were looking for when they marched into Jerusalem nearly 2000 years ago.
But, we follow in their footsteps. We break bread and drink wine to remember Jesus. We wash our feet and have our feet washed to learn to serve like Jesus. We move through the darkness into the Garden of Gethsemane, contemplating suffering which casts shadows of doubt throughout the journey of faith. We stand at the foot of the cross listening to Jesus pray, “Father, forgive them,” in order to learn how to forgive. We stand among the dead and gather around the paschal fire, hearing stories of God’s mighty saving acts in the midst of death in hopes of proclaiming loudly and boldly God’s resurrection promises, echoing Paul, who proclaims that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
May we remember all of this, may our faith increase, and may our love for God and for each other sustain us as we enter the gates of Jerusalem, as we participate together in the story of Jesus’s final days there in that holy city.
Malcolm Guite writes this, in his poem titled Palm Sunday:
Now to the gate of my Jerusalem,
The seething holy city of my heart,
The Saviour comes.
But will I welcome him?Oh crowds of easy feelings make a start;
They raise their hands,
get caught up in the singing,
And think the battle won.Too soon they’ll find
The challenge,
the reversal he is bringing
Changes their tune.I know what lies behind
The surface flourish that so quickly fades;
Self-interest,
and fearful guardedness,
The hardness of the heart,
its barricades,
And at the core,
the dreadful emptiness
Of a perverted temple.Jesus, come
Break my resistance
and make me your home.”