Hosanna

Jesus’ trimphal entry set in motion week’s events leading to Passion

NWA Democrat-Gazette/MICHAEL WOODS @NWAMICHAELW Members of the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville walk along Dickson Street during last year’s procession of palms before their Palm Sunday service. Palm Sunday falls on the Sunday before Easter Sunday and marks Jesus entry into Jerusalem, where he was heralded by the waving of palm branches.
NWA Democrat-Gazette/MICHAEL WOODS @NWAMICHAELW Members of the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville walk along Dickson Street during last year’s procession of palms before their Palm Sunday service. Palm Sunday falls on the Sunday before Easter Sunday and marks Jesus entry into Jerusalem, where he was heralded by the waving of palm branches.

Palm Sunday is the beginning of Holy Week, area clergy state simply. It celebrates Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem.

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

Another Look

A Jewish rabbi might seem an unlikely choice for a source of information for the story that sets Christians apart from the Jews. Yet, Rabbi Robert Lennick, spiritual leader of Congregation Etz Chaim in Bentonville, brings a different view to the life and death of Jesus.

"I like to see Jesus in the world in which he lived," Lennick said. "Because, Jesus, a Jew, was of the world."

The stories of Jesus' life and death have taught him much about Judaism and the progressive vision of Jews in this time, Lennick said.

"I don't see things as simple," he stated. "We want to think of everything as the short, quick soundbite that we've reduced it to -- not the way it is, especially in the history of religion ... or how I imagine it."

The basic story can be understood in two completely different ways -- each person has a spirit and each is just as true -- which happens with anything over time, Lennick said.

"And I fell firmly resistant to any suggestion that my interpretation is right in somebody else's world."

Following the Lectionary

Liturgical churches follow a particular calendar, setting them apart from other Christian churches. The word liturgy comes from the Greek word, leitourgia, and refers to the work done in public worship. In liturgical churches, both the clergy and the laity are active participants (workers) in the worship.

Liturgical churches follow a lectionary with prescribed readings for each Sunday and feast day of the church year. The readings cover most of the Bible in a three-year cycle of Sundays, using the lectionary.

The Episcopal Church -- like other liturgical churches, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Catholic, among others -- has a structure to worship that will be the virtually the same in every church within that particular denomination.

Source: The Rev. Pamela Morgan, senior pastor St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Springdale

History of the Palms

As a Christian observance, Palm Sunday dates back to the 10th century. But ancient folk beliefs about palm branches date back much further. Crosses made of woven palms were once a popular charm against disease.

-- Holiday Symbols

"Hosanna to the Son of David!"

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

"Hosanna in the highest heaven!"

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is this?"

The crowds answered, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee."

-- Matthew 21: 6-11

"Palms are the sign of a conquering hero," said the Rev. Katie Cummings, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Bentonville. "A war hero would return with a parade of horses, and people would wave palms or olive branches in victory. They would sing and chant and all that.

"When Jesus entered, it would have been very dramatic, waving palm branches and even putting their cloaks on the road giving him honor."

"Laying palms eases the way," said Rabbi Robert Lennick, spiritual leader of Congregation Etz Chaim in Bentonville. "In the Hebrew, Greek and Roman cultures, waving palms was a sign of victory or adoration."

"Palms are a common practice of the king," agreed the Rev. Pamela Morgan, pastor of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Springdale. "They are giving him a king's welcome.

"But they are going to have their faith shattered," she added. "They do not enthrone him -- they crucify him. The same people who held the palm branches and hailed him as king will turn against him."

Tradition Shared

After Constantine declared Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, he encouraged pilgrims to go to Jerusalem to see the significant sites in the life of Jesus, Cummings said.

The journals of a woman named Egeria recorded her pilgrimage sometime between 381 and 384, Cummings continued. Egeria wrote of attending a Sunday morning service on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus spent time with his disciples during his final days. After that, the early pilgrims traveled to the site of the execution, which was right outside the temple walls; then, to the site of the Ascension.

"They would process through the city waving palms and singing the Psalms: 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna!'" Cummings continued.

These pilgrims took the custom back to their own lands, and it spread that way, she said.

Early evidence shows palms in Northern Spain, Cummings listed. Cyril, the bishop of Jerusalem beginning in 350, encouraged the practice. The waving of palms is first noted in church liturgy in 600. In the 14th century, Christian churches added the palm processions to the beginning of worship services on Palm Sunday -- also referred to as Passion Sunday.

"So you have a community of Christians that go to Jerusalem, saying, 'Hosanna! God saves!'" Cummings said. "It's grand, and it's an honor.

"But Jesus was not on a war horse. He was on a donkey," fulfilling the teachings of the Old Testament prophets, Cummings continued.

"He knew he entered the community to be humiliated and crucified. And we know -- unlike the people in the moment, the other people in the story. We know the end of the story."

Anointed

"In the same time of Jesus' world, Jews were under Roman rule," Lennick said. "And there were all these different groups who had different ideas on how to survive as Jews under the ruling powers and politics."

Jesus belonged to the group of Jews from Nazarene, a coalescent people, Lennick said.

"But Jesus eliminates the need for all of these groups in his message," Lennick said. He had all of their beliefs in his message.

"Jesus was a rabbi. He reasoned. He taught Judaism, pure and simple."

And the law remains important in Judaism and Christianity, Lennick said. "In (Jesus') time, it was important for the Jews to adapt the law to the way they lived -- but not for power."

Prophets had promised the Jews a new king to free them from foreign rule, and they were expecting a civil king, Lennick continued. They expected a man from the line of David to fulfill the writing of prophets -- like Isaiah. The king was to be a peace maker among the nations.

This worried Roman rulers. "'Rome has only one king, and that is Caesar,'" Lennick quoted.

"Messiah" simply means king, and so the people began referring to Jesus as the Messiah, Lennick noted. And "Christ" comes from the Hebrew word for "Messiah," which means anointed.

Aaron was anointed as the first priest of the Hebrews, and civil kings also were anointed.

Jesus received his own anointing a few days before his death. He was staying in the town of Bethany at the home of a man named Simon the Leper, whom Jesus had healed.

"For churches that follow the Lectionary, the story comes this year from the Gospel of Mark," Morgan said. "It begins with an alabaster jar of oil to anoint him. The disciples raged against the waste of money. But Jesus said the story will be told wherever the gospel is told."

She poured perfume over my body to prepare for my burial (Jesus said). I tell you the truth, whenever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will always be told, in memory of her.

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them.

-- Mark 14:8-10

Passover

"The idea of a Jewish Messiah was annoying to the king," Lennick said. "But it has a different meaning to Christians.

"Up until that time, no one thought of the Messiah as being supernatural, a cosmic Jesus -- although that has become a cornerstone of some Christians faiths," Lennick continued. "When Jesus arrived, the coming of a supposed king wasn't even in the conversation -- although it became obvious to his followers what was going on. The response of all the Jews and a number of other followers brought trouble, but they just didn't see it."

Jews celebrate the Feast of the Unleavened bread or Passover to mark the Exodus, the freedom from slavery in Egypt. And many of them came to celebrate the feast at the temple in Jerusalem.

"During the week before Passover, people came to Jerusalem to make sacrifices in the temple," Lennick continued. "So there was a lot of business going on. Some people brought their own animals -- paschal or lamb -- and others bought them from those who came to town to sell them.

"There was a lot of hub-bub and activity, and the majority of the Jews weren't paying attention to Jesus. You can't minimize that.

"So when the Jews arrived in Jerusalem, the authorities were already anxious," Lennick noted. "The mobs from Passover challenged the resources of the cultural and social authorities. The Jews feel pressure living under Roman rule. And Jesus comes to the city to speak the truth.

"The No. 1 part of the authority's reaction was due to the climate in the city.

"Jesus was crucified on a charge of sedition -- for posing or presenting oneself as a political savior," Lennick asserted.

"To call anyone king was to put yourself in danger," Cummings agreed. "For early Christians, this was treason. To say that 'Jesus is Lord' is to say that Caesar is not."

At the Crucifixion, soldiers placed a sign on Jesus' cross, with the letters of INRI, Lennick said.

"It read 'Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews.' It was placed there as a mockery, comparing him to a 'real king.'"

"So the people were throwing palm branches to the king anointed by God," Morgan said. "But the king sent by God was not the kind of king dressed in ermine, sitting on a gold throne above the people. He was wearing a crown of thorns and lifted above the people on a cross.

"God does not always behave the way people expect him to," she said.

Hour at hand

"Up to this point, Jesus had not put himself at the center of the public at all," Cummings said. "But he said, 'The hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners' (Matthew 26:45). He was quoting the prophets. The events had started happening. "

Morgan noted parallels between Jesus' time in the garden of Gethsemane and Adam and Eve's time in the Garden of Eden -- the story that started it all.

Jesus went to pray in Gethsemane after his Passover meal. There, he was betrayed by a kiss and arrested by the Romans -- to be tried and crucified the next day.

"Jesus in the garden before his death could disobey his father in heaven and choose not to go through with it," Morgan said. "But he chose obedience, where Adam and Eve chose sin. Jesus did not fall to sin at Gethsemane."

She listed all the horrible things people did to Jesus during Holy Week: betrayal, false accusions, torture and execution.

"But he took all of that, and let it die with him -- he rose new from the grave," Morgan continued. "It's how God turned the consequences of sin."

When God discovered Adam and Eve had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, he banished them and let them die.

... until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you will return.

-- Genesis 3:19

"They didn't get a chance to eat from the tree of life -- for one thing, there was a cherubim guarding it with a flaming sword," Morgan said. "So they didn't get the chance to live. And God sent Jesus to do the same.

"In God's mercy, they didn't have to live forever in sin, and we don't have to live forever in sin."

NAN Religion on 03/28/2015

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