PALM SUNDAY ANTI-CLIMAX
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
Websites tend to disappear into the digital ether. Feel free to copy and share this.
The world can’t help but notice the Christ, and aspects of the Christ, in whatever loving form they may appear. But it is a marginal and uncomfortable noticing. The Christ is too different to not be noticed. But the notice must not get out of hand, for that would threaten the status quo, would require some response to this Christ or expression of Christ. Manifestations of the Christ can’t help but be noticed, but we will not allow response that might entail change in us or our world.
The Palm Sunday procession in various guises will appear in the media, Palm Sunday processions representing the world’s inescapable notice of this unique Christ. The various forms of procession will always happen. We cannot help but glance at the various manifestations of healing and compassion and the Christ that enter our lives. But 2000 years ago there was no ensuing revolution and popular overturning of worldly power. There never is in this world. That entrance to Jerusalem, the world’s ensuing glance, and the subsequent crucifixion by a world that chose to not change, illustrates the world’s response to Christ’s love then and now. When the good and generous and holy enter the world we may see the world glance at it, and for a moment our hopes may rise that this campaign, this movement, this religion, this trend, this organization will finally change the world. But it won’t. The world may glance and wave a laudatory palm- branch, but there will be no revolution.
Yet that Palm Sunday anti-climax, endlessly repeated since, gives not a lesson in discouragement and hopelessness. It tells us to add our praise when the Spirit of Christ enters before us in whatever form. It teaches us that while the world may briefly glance at the latest procession of God’s Love, by the next day that Love may be hung on a cross.
Yet that perennial, endlessly repeating darkness of the world after each flicker of dawn is not cause for despair after all. For Hope and Love and change need not this world to arise, for Love has a life of its own.
Love is Life, and it lives on, the world’s rejections and crucifixions of it never triumphing, but providing opportunity for the resurrections in which our real Hope resides.
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
Websites tend to disappear into the digital ether. Feel free to copy and share this.
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
Websites tend to disappear into the digital ether. Feel free to copy and share this.
The world can’t help but notice the Christ, and aspects of the Christ, in whatever loving form they may appear. But it is a marginal and uncomfortable noticing. The Christ is too different to not be noticed. But the notice must not get out of hand, for that would threaten the status quo, would require some response to this Christ or expression of Christ. Manifestations of the Christ can’t help but be noticed, but we will not allow response that might entail change in us or our world.
The Palm Sunday procession in various guises will appear in the media, Palm Sunday processions representing the world’s inescapable notice of this unique Christ. The various forms of procession will always happen. We cannot help but glance at the various manifestations of healing and compassion and the Christ that enter our lives. But 2000 years ago there was no ensuing revolution and popular overturning of worldly power. There never is in this world. That entrance to Jerusalem, the world’s ensuing glance, and the subsequent crucifixion by a world that chose to not change, illustrates the world’s response to Christ’s love then and now. When the good and generous and holy enter the world we may see the world glance at it, and for a moment our hopes may rise that this campaign, this movement, this religion, this trend, this organization will finally change the world. But it won’t. The world may glance and wave a laudatory palm- branch, but there will be no revolution.
Yet that Palm Sunday anti-climax, endlessly repeated since, gives not a lesson in discouragement and hopelessness. It tells us to add our praise when the Spirit of Christ enters before us in whatever form. It teaches us that while the world may briefly glance at the latest procession of God’s Love, by the next day that Love may be hung on a cross.
Yet that perennial, endlessly repeating darkness of the world after each flicker of dawn is not cause for despair after all. For Hope and Love and change need not this world to arise, for Love has a life of its own.
Love is Life, and it lives on, the world’s rejections and crucifixions of it never triumphing, but providing opportunity for the resurrections in which our real Hope resides.
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
Websites tend to disappear into the digital ether. Feel free to copy and share this.