We are summoned to recollect the story of an allegedly abortive coup d’é·tat during the Lenten season of lengthening days in the former Christendom of the northwest. The older name in the Greek Orthodox tradition is the season of ‘bright sadness’ or the Sarakosti (forty) fasting before the Sunday of resurrection. The eastern traditions observe the Valiya Nombu, a period of fasting and cleansing.
Believe it or not, the liturgical calendar is reigning in our religious imaginations. Anabrupt insurrection of petrified Palestinian pariahs in an abandoned Roman outpost shouting out ‘hosanna’ in one tumultuous week carried the day into an unbelievably mystical resurrection of amens and alleluias!
Hundreds of thousands of appalling uprisings, revolutions and rebellions such as Maccabean revolt, Taiping rebellion, march on Rome, July plot, ‘Quit’ India as well as American civil rights movements are part of our hair-raising history. Cream of the crop, self-assured forerunners like Abraham Lincoln, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Lee Kuan Yewetc. responded to the helpless laments of ‘hosannas’ of their citizens and crushed their oppressors.
Anarchist ringleaders are out to diminish the defenceless. The oppressed outcasts were prepared for an upright challenger to the emperor in order to build a royal residence in Bethany with a few capitals to rule the world! No wonder why Mark Twain reminded us, “Politicians are like diapers, they need to be changed often, and for the same reasons.”
In our teeming world of seven billion plus lonely souls, we grudgingly tolerate too many fumbling cult inciters and their obtuse sycophants. Such psychopaths need to be expunged before they trample on the fundamental rights of the poor tossed on the margins in ‘Bethany’ – houses of affliction. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell warns: “Access to sufficient amounts of clean water is a matter of life and death…children in Gaza have barely a drop to drink,”
Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift stated in Elle “Invoking racism and provoking fear through thinly veiled messaging is not what I want from our leaders, and I realize that it actually is my responsibility to use my influence against that is disgusting rhetoric.” Don’t we encounter unhappy and lonely people almost every day on the sidewalk, in the shopping malls as well as our places of worship?
Most humans behave like a scared stiff lion with a doomed creature in his mouth climbing up a tree in the middle of hyena clan. The predator cannot gobble up the snack nor would he dare to climb down to grace a banquet for the ravenous hyenas! Therefore, in our pursuit of grasping, in spite of all the modern gizmos to connect with ourselves, family and friends, we are on the go, like a lonely cat on a hot tin roof! Maybe that’s why the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi reminded us, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
On the contrary, the leader of the Palm Sunday parade had a preordained mandate:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed….”
In retrospect, Palm Sunday insurrection was the ‘first’ nail in the coffin of the Roman hegemony and its divine emperor. However, the donkey and its master won the day while the empires face-planted and faded away.
Sacred experience of the holy is not an unintended deflection but a purposeful passage pursuant to one’s transformative change of heart n life. An animated aircrew help us gently get in a freshly sterile air-carrier and welcome us to embark on our movement from place to place subject to pleasant weather conditions. We choose an airline known for its successfully safe track record and cheerfully pay for premium packages provided by professionally trained personnel. We do our best to avoid inebriate pilots, unfriendly personnel and unkempt aisle, seats and washrooms! Now we know why the faithful flee when things go awry.
Many have had noxious experiences with inept crew: scandals, corruption, distortions, friendzone, clergy sexual misconduct, money laundering, uninspiring music, leaky roof, musty smells, no social hour following the service etc. For example, unlike glacially slow denominations, the United Church of Canada has been on the cutting edge for life-long learning, learned ministry, vibrant lay leadership, social justice, rights of Indigenous peoples, minority ethnic engagement, interfaith dialogue and ecumenical dynamism.
Nevertheless, there is absolutely nothing to reinvent in a faith tradition except to nudge its adherents to follow the straight and narrow albeit we must clean up the unflattering debris left behind its former occupants.
All four narratives written by Mark (11), Matthew (21), Luke (19) and John (12) tell the action-packed entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. However, there is absolutely no citation of this theatrical entry as anywhere near ‘triumphant’. In reality, similar to the abortive insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 when Congress met to certify presidential election in world’s oldest democracy, it was a parade of the pariahs, losers, hapless urchins from the margins of the colonized territories of the empire.
Perhaps Jesus is the only founder of a faith with myriad of images from carpenter, bar tender, good shepherd, a man who preached, healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the hungry, cleaned the temple, prayed alone, transfigured, arrested and brought before a judge, nailed to a wooden cross, first to be resurrected, first and only one ascended and promised to return.
On the outskirts of the empire, thousands of women, children and asylum seekers scream ‘hosannas’ to join in the parade behind Jesus who declared, “I am the bread of life, the light of the world, the good shepherd, the resurrection and life, the way, the truth and the life.’
This ‘donkey’ parade is appropriately known as Hosanna Sunday in the ancient Eastern churches while it known as Palm Sunday in the younger traditions in the West. All Gospels, except Hellenized Luke, mentioned hosanna.
Deluded by the song, ‘Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning’ with its refrain,
“Sing hosanna, sing hosanna,
sing hosanna to the King of kings!
once a Roman Catholic cardinal referred to it as ‘singing Hosannas’. When the house is on fire, no one sings but hollers for help. As stated in Psalm 118, very much like a desperate 911 phone call, Hosanna means ‘save or rescue, saviour’.
On the barren isle of Patmos (19:4) John dreamt of ‘the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne. And they cried: “Amen, Hallelujah!” Subsequently, our recurrent holy expeditions to sacred places as well as mystical experiences are refreshing affirmations of hosannas, amens and alleluias!
Recalibrated by the resurrection joy of risen Jesus, let us lift ourselves and others around us up from gloom and grief to thankfulness and triumph as we pray with Henri Nouwen: “Gracious Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again. Amen.”
(The Rev. Dr. John T. Mathew, The United Church of Canada, Mississauga, ON.)
