Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday brings us to a time of keeping watch with Jesus.  On this day, suddenly, as if without warning, we are confronted by the passion in its entirety.  You would think that we would be ready for this.  For more than a week we have been hearing liturgical rumbles of controversy, conflict and plots.  We have been exposed to laments from the prophet Jeremiah and Lamentations.  All of Lent has been leading to this.  All year round, we bear the image of the Crucified on our walls and our bodies.  But there always seems to be something shocking about Palm Sunday.  Perhaps it is that we become too accustomed to our crucifixes and their real significance fades away from our consciousness.  Perhaps it is the jarring combination of “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Perhaps it is that the confessional form of faith in Christ crucified and risen, with its poetic beauty and theological depth, gives way at this moment to the narrative form which does not spare us the details of human cruelty.  Suddenly, it has become personal: someone we know, someone we love, is suffering.
 
 “My soul is sorrowful even to death.
Remain here and keep watch with me.” (Mt 26:38)
 
In Gethsemane, all of a sudden and for the first time, we are faced with Jesus at his weakest.  He knows that he will not make it out of the garden alive.  He will be handed over there, die there, and be buried there.  And he is terrified and alone.
Into this place of horror, the disciples cannot follow, though his words suggest that he would like them to.  They are already falling away and do not know what to say to him.  They cannot face their master’s fear any more than we can face our parents’ tears.  But it is really their own fear they cannot face.  Is it not the case when we discover that our parents, our role models, our seniors, our leaders and in fact, everyone around us is subject to the isolating terror and crumbling weakness which is the human condition?  We thought we alone were weak, and they were strong.  That we are not in fact alone in our fear and weakness makes it all the more terrible.  So, the disciples sleep.
 
This week, Jesus asks us to keep watch with him.  As we do so, he shows us a way through fear to a share in his rocklike trust in the Father.
 
Keep watch with me…
…when I am forced to stay home with family members who are verbally, physically or sexually abusive.
 
Keep watch with me…
…when I spend spend twelve hours a day working in the ER, and twelve more lonely and sleepless in an empty apartment, separated from family members for their own safety.
 
Keep watch with me…
…when due to addiction or mental illness, confined space and restricted movement push me to the limit of endurance and beyond.
 
Keep watch with me…
…when I bear responsibility for the safety and well-being of others and yet am helpless to protect them from danger.
 
Keep watch with me…
…when, due to imprisonment, homelessness or poverty, I am trapped in a dangerous situation facing peril without protection.
 
Keep watch with me…
…when I occupy one bed among thousands in a tent hospital, surrounded by people and activity, yet separated from everyone I know and love.
 
Keep watch with me…
…when I can only watch my elderly relative suffer from the other side of a window and hope and pray that they are spared.
 
Keep watch with me…
…when, because of lack of medical equipment, I am forced to make choices no one should have to between one life and another.
 
Let us keep watch every day this week, until we hear another passion gospel read on Good Friday.  Let us draw near to Jesus in the time of his weakness and fear and allow him to draw us into the certainty of his unfailing presence.  Let us gather into our hearts all those who need someone to keep watch with them, as we pray as a community and in solitude, as we ponder the Scriptures deeply, as we make all the necessary preparations for the days ahead.  Let us live this Holy Week like none other.
 
I would like to close with two poems by our brother Christophe Lebreton of Atlas, who was also called to live Holy week to an extraordinary depth:
 
The Hour
On the threshold of mercy
we wait a little longer
for the hour
We weep a little
at the door of tenderness
for the hour
Convinced
we enter into prayer
and wait for the hour
in faithful patience
yes
stabilized folly
naked praise
cloistered love
 
In Love
Living your absence
deeply
Loading the crossbeam
deeply
Listening to silence
deeply
Facing you and death
deeply
deeply
in love
my body too.