Palm Sunday (April 1, 2012) Mark 11:1-11
       9Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

        “Hosanna!
        Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
          ¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
        Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

¹¹Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. Mark 11:9-11

This is one of the more vivid visual passages in the technicolor section of the gospels we call 'the passion of Christ.'  As is so frequent (and appropriate!) we hear of simple details that were recorded (no doubt) for a purpose that seem to be detached or left dangling on their own. For me there are two such details in this passage.

First -- the whole thing about the colt/donkey. Never before ridden so it's somehow unblemished or pure? Not according to Mike Baughman in this week's The Hardest Question. It's because it's not a gelding, but rather is untamed, wild and unpredictable ... (he points out it is probably significant that it isn't sterile because what Jesus is about to do is fruitful -- the same  basis for my preference for wine over juice at the table, though I don't drink wine any other time).

Second --the almost total anticlimax of v.11: after all the palms and cloaks spread on the road, the colt being obtained so oddly, when Jesus gets to the temple .... he looks around and leaves. HUH???? I would have been shouting inside myself: Jesus, you're finally here, DO SOMETHING!!!
 

And Jesus is riding it down the usual conquering hero's route into Jerusalem ... but, you recall, on a 'model' that's never been test-ridden. Which is Jesus in a nutshell: not concerned with the way things have always been done, just with how they need to be done from this second forward.

And he does, soon enough -- with a decisiveness born of the valuable assessment no doubt made the day before as he looked around.... and did nothing because the hour was late.

         +  does the church today spend enough time / not enough time / too much time assessing the damage that has been done in the world (and therefore, what our response could rightly be)? 

         + how well (or not) has the church been able to react to the need to take risks, to drive the untamed prototype? how might we go about following Jesus more and more into new ways of doing ministry?  

Palms from years past flank the cross at NSPC

Southern half of a panorama of modern day view of Jerusalem just after sunrise taken from the Mount of Olives

Northern half of the panorama -- newly regilded Dome of the Rock at left-center; the Holy of Holies of Temple would have been placed a bit to the north (right) of that (and clearly visible to all from Mt. of Olives).

Model of the Holy of Holies,  the Women's Court in front of the low arch and the Court of the Gentiles (to which Jesus returns the next day and drives out those doing business within the temple precincts.) It would have been prominently visible from the Mount of Olives (to the right of the golden Dome of the Rock in the panorama photo above).

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name? Will you go where you don't know and never be the same? Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known, will you let my life be grown in you, and you in me?                The Summons (v.1) by John Bell