“Parades and Passion”

3/26/99

“Parades and Passion”

Our Lord Jesus Christ knew a lot about both parades and passion.

Now when I use the term parades I’m using the word in a broad sense.  The word parade referring to the high points of life…..the  mountain tops.  Those times in life when “the road rises to meet us,  the sun shines warmly on our faces and the rain falls softly upon our fields."

Jesus is certainly experiencing a literal and figurative parade in the account read to us this morning.

He is riding on a donkey and branches are laid out before him in the way that a conquering hero would enter into a town in his day…..and keep in mind, this is not just any town,  this is the most important religious and commercial city in the world. 

And people are shouting out “Hosanna,”  indicating they believe that this is possibly the special one  the nation has been waiting for,  for so long.

And we remember Jesus special day today,  a day in his remarkable life when at least some gave to him the recognition which he deserved.

Our Lord Jesus Christ did experience parades,  or high points in his life,  times when the sun did shine warmly upon his face.

But he certainly experienced the opposite of parades too didn’t he?  He experienced so fully the passion of life.

And when I use the word passion,  I’m not using it in the way we usually mean it.  We say that some one is passionate and we normally mean that they’re very emotional.

(Zorba the Greek…..Maria Callas)

When I say that Jesus experienced the passion of life I mean that he experienced the very worst that life has to offer.  He drank deeply at the well of sorrow.  To the point that this towering incomparable person prays in the agony of Gethesemane:  “Father if is possible,  let this cup pass from me.”

And then at this point he is arrested,  stripped,  humiliated,  brutalized at least 19 times,  until it is finished.

Our lord knew fully about parades,   and he knew fully about passion didn’t he?

In a sense,  isn’t his life a picture of our world?

Don’t we live in a world characterized by both parades and passion?  A world of celebrations and executions.

Last Sunday evening,  if you were anything like me,  you were probably glued to your teles,   watching along with hundreds of millions of others those little golden statues given out to those people who have made it to the top of our hero lists.  And Stephen Speilberg and Jack Nicholson and Merrill Streep and Gwenith Paltrow and Tom Hanks lead the parade.  And our society is celebrated again worldwide and we love it.

And last week in many parts of the world,  a very strange thing happened again.  African Americans and Orientals and Germans and Russians and Mexicans and Scandinavians and even Texans became Irish.  

It was Saint Patrick’s Day.  

Of course here in New York the bagpipes and the hornpipes were playing and New York’s finest and New York’s bravest and the politicians and representatives from counties in Ireland were all marching.  

Life is full of parades isn’t it.  Both literally and figuratively speaking.  There is so much beauty and there’s so much to celebrate and there are times when we lay out the branches and and we march and we shout for joy.  Isn’t this true?

But life isn’t all about parades.  It’s about passion too isn’t it?

Last week while so many celebrated,   there was a Nigerian Family that wasn’t celebrating were they?

Not long ago a mother and father were so hopeful and excited as their good son           came to our shores to go to school and to make a better life for he and his family.  He  had a great attitude.  His friends say that he knew how to laugh.  He lifted those around him.   To make some bucks he became a street vendor and he worked conscientiously at it.  

And one day he heard a knock on his door,   and  he made the mistake of opening it.   And 19 bullets later, he wasn’t thinkin about going to school any more was he?   And his parents would never be the same.

And last Wednesday,  while marching groups waited on New York cross streets,  and made sure every thing was all shiney,   and rehersed their pieces one last time before they got out there on 5th Ave.,   mortar shells were being lobbed in on Kosovo,  and fighter jets and stealth bombers and missles and deadly  computer systems were being checked out one last time.

And this last week in this strange world of ours,  the passion continued didn’t it?

We travel in a world of parades and passion and in all the territory in between.

The significance of Holy Week is that in these last days of Jesus life he gave us the perfect example about how we are to travel in this world.

He showed us that we are to walk hand in hand with the Father.

He showed us that we must be involved in the world.

And at the end of this remarkable week,  he showed to the world how things are ultimately going to turn out.  At the end of Holy Week our ressurrected Lord . said….the ultimate outcome was never in doubt.

There is a wonderful story which awaits us at the end of this week.  (elaborate)