Dear friends,
As Easter approaches, I (we) want to share some timely and insightful reflections on the celebration of Palm Sunday, as we make our way through the sixth week of Lent, Holy Week. It is all too easy to sidestep Palm Sunday’s incredible political significance, so I will share below the insights from my college friend, Rev. James Van Tholen, a Christian Reformed minister who died too young in 2001at age 36 of an aggressive cancer. Jim’s incisive sermons on the liturgical year have been collected in a published volume entitled, “Where All Hope Lies: Sermons for the Liturgical Year,” (Eerdman’s, 2003) and I have been doing my best to read them each Sunday over the past couple of years. We did not know each other well, but we did know each other at Calvin, and I resonate deeply with Jim’s depth of perspective - his references to Frederick Buechner, to Stanley Hauerwas, and his call to radical discipleship in the face of struggle and hardship. Jim’s reference to Palm Sunday as a “Junior Easter celebration” struck me as particularly insightful this week. Below are some quotes from his Palm Sunday sermon in that volume.
Where All Hope Lies: Sermons for the Liturgical Year, James R. Van Tholen
Excerpts from “Palm Sunday: An Alien King”
“How fitting that our Messiah should be welcomed into Jerusalem in a first-century version of a ticker-tape parade. But of course that’s the problem, because it doesn’t fit. It doesn’t really fit at all. Because this is Lent we’re in. For five weeks we’ve reflected upon the fact that we are a journeying people following in the footsteps of a suffering Savior. We’ve watched from a distance as he set his face to go to Jerusalem, and we know that he was setting his face not to go to a parade of palms but to go to a cross. All along we’ve known that the cross is where he’s been headed. And, now here we are on the brink of beginning Holy Week, at the entrance into Jerusalem, just a few days before the agony of being betrayed and tried and whipped and mocked and killed, and what do we find? We find a coronation. We find a royal welcome for the man who has come to the capital city to suffer many things. It doesn’t fit because the king has come to die in Jerusalem, not reign there. It doesn’t fit because the journey to suffering is still going on; his face is still set. It doesn’t fit because the next time he is labeled king of the Jews it’ll be part of some joke hanging over his bloody head. Maybe these Palm Sunday disciples caught onto anything. “Hosanna in the highest!” It just doesn’t fit. And so the timing here makes us a bit uncomfortable, doesn’t it? It’s a little strange singing, “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” when we remember that it’s a tomb, not a palace, in which he’ll spend the weekend. There’s something wrong with making Palm Sunday a junior Easter celebration, honoring Christ the king, when we know that this coronation will be completed with a crown of thorns…” …
“That’s the mystery of Palm Sunday, not how it doesn’t fit into Holy Week, but how well it does. The mystery is that the king of glory could enter the city of his people to be put to death there. The mystery is that the same ones who yelled so loudly, “Hosanna!” could a few days later yell more loudly “Crucify him!” and not realize that they were yelling the same thing. Filled with love for his people, he was willing to die in their place. He was so moved by the human cry, “Hosanna – save us!” that he refused to ‘come down from the cross and save’ himself. That’s the kind of king he is – like no other, belonging to a different world, raising up a different kind of people.”…
“So we praise this king with “Hosanna!” and “All glory!” but, when we do, we do it as he receives it – looking straight at the cross and knowing that that changes everything The cross is a sign of what happens when you take God’s account of reality more seriously than Caesar’s. When you refuse to underwrite the status quo, and instead proclaim, “Jesus is Lord!” then you believe that to find your life you must lose it. We are a community of the cross, strangers in a world that thinks only suckers end up on crosses. And being marked by a cross has a lot to do with dying, dying to the ways of the world, dying to other kingdoms, dying to accomplishment and success and status. But when Jesus Christ is your king, you don’t stay dead for very long.”
“Blessed is the strange king who comes in the name of the Lord. And blessed are all those who belong to him.”
Blessed is the strange king, Jesus, indeed.
Julie and I wish each of you a blessed, and challenging Holy Week, Easter, and Eastertide. The world is as challenging now as it was for first century Israelites – oppression, violence, and confusion. I pray that we all have the courage to follow the voices of the prophets who call us to provide for the aliens, the strangers, the widows and orphans, and all those on the margins of society. The courage to wash one another's feet, and to stand up in the face of danger and claim our identity as friends of Jesus.
On Sunday we will welcome friends from our local Budapest community who are also far from home, and after our Easter potluck brunch, we will read, as is our custom, Walter Wangerin’s short story “Lily” from the book Ragman: and Other Cries of Faith. If you can find it, I highly recommend it to you. It is a story of “again,” of a faith that reminds us that even in times of death and sorrow, there is hope, and God is near.
Recent news from us includes Julie’s very positive beginning of her work as Intake Coordinator for the Counseling Center where she now works. Her colleagues are providing on-going, in-depth, intensive therapy for missionaries and global workers, and Julie is often a first contact for people as they make their way to Budapest for care and counseling. We are very grateful for this opportunity to serve.
And in early April Jeff had the privilege to spend a few days with the Cohort Europe team in Lithuania as we learned from Resonate colleagues and others about the creative and expansive vision of LCC International University in Klaipeda.
Peace to you, friends, as you make your way to the cross, and as you take in the enormity of the reality of the resurrection.
In eternal hope,
Jeff and Julie
PS In case there is anyone out there who fits the description of a “young adult” who might be interested in ministry in Europe next year, I am happy to report that our applications for Cohort Europe are still open until the end of the month. Join young adults from Eastern Europe and North America in a meaningful opportunity to serve the people of God in Europe next year. If you are interested, please send a direct email and I can connect you to the application process.
PS2. If you have been pondering a one-time or a monthly financial gift, we would very much welcome your partnership, and if your church is looking to add a ministry in Europe to those you support, we would welcome a few more churches as partners as well. Details for supporting us can be found on our Resonate webpage here. After you tap the yellow “donate” button, you will be asked if you would like to donate in USD or Canadian, and then you will land on a page where you choose an amount, and then on the drop-down menu below you will choose “Missionaries-Europe,” and below that a drop-down menu will be a list of names, and you select Jeff and Julie Bouman. Below that are instructions for entering payment information. Please consider joining us in partnership!
No comments:
Post a Comment