1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD of hosts!
2 My soul longs, indeed it faints
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Today is Palm Sunday. It is the beginning of a week when we recall the last week of Christ. Many of those who follow dates and seasons have used this time for prayer, fasting, and increasing gifts. In our household, it is the first day of the school play. For secular schools ignore the church calendar, bowing only to the Ministry.
It is also the day in New Zealand most laws come into force. For years it has been known as April Fool’s day… where a tradition of spoofs and practical jokes occurs. Today we end daylight saving this year… which mans it is dawn about now (0645) not in an hour’s time.
9Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 12Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.
9And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
10And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. 11On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.
1On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.
7″Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my associate,” says the LORD of hosts. Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones. 8In the whole land, says the LORD, two-thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one-third shall be left alive. 9And I will put this third into the fire, refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, “They are my people”; and they will say, “The LORD is our God.”
Now, while I am writing, the Concert Programme is playing motets for Palm Sunday. The question for today and for holy week is — in part, what is this day, and what is this time. Now, my more reformed friends would say that using the Calender is unnecessary, Which is correct — but that does not temove the question.
If we listen to the radio and TV… or the school … this is just another day. There will be news of floods (Fiji) tragedies, admixed with gossip in the news. The shops will be open. Life goes on. And if one blinds oneself to the sight of the cross, deafens oneself to the music of the passion, and shuts one’s speech, relegating Christianinty into a cone of silence like a good postmodern fool, one can see this as April Fool’s day. And those of Christ as foolish.
But it was not like that. No one in Jerusalem could ignore Jesus on this day. For he entered… on a Donkey… in the manner that Zechariah foretold. From that has come the healing of my sins, the sin of my nations, and the sins of all peoples and all nations. But… (yes there is one) … the fool cannot see this.
For the fool cannot see the need to correct their life. They has silenced their conscience, and when their friend corrects them they do not listen, but get offended. A community is foolisn if they listen to but these bleats of hurt from fools: Instead of correction and repentence, they are rewarded. The leaders who allow this. we are told, will be winnowed. For they are talking security in a time of risk, peace in a time of war, and correction when things are worthy, right and true.
So… today, do we recall the entry of Christ, and his work of salvation, paying attention to our lives, or do we listen to the whispers of the fool, that blind, deafen and paralyze us? Are we wise or fools?