A Parade of Our Own Making

The whole multitude of disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19.37-38)

Better

On a sunny day in late August, a bunch of kids on our block got together and decided to create our own amusement park. We’d all returned from our family vacations. The first day of school was coming. Building a playland would likely be our last hurrah. We pooled a bunch of toys and stuff from our garages and went to work in an empty lot on our street. Someone found a stretch of rope that we used to string together a train of old tricycles. Someone else showed up with a spare tire; we rigged a ramp so we could climb inside the tire and push it over the edge. I pulled out my wagon and we laid a cardboard track over dirt mounds at the back of the lot. Voilà! Now we had a rollercoaster!

What we were up to was dangerous, for sure, and someone might have got hurt if our moms hadn’t stopped us. Even before they shut us down, however, we’d bumped into the realities of physics. Nothing worked as smoothly as we’d hoped. Pushing and pulling one another over uneven ground was hard work. Realizing we didn’t have the energy to keep our makeshift park going, we’d already figured out the good times weren’t going to last. By noon, it was over and we went back to our usual play. Still, it was one of the best summer days of my childhood.

One moment in particular stands out. An older girl from several streets over pulled up on a fancy purple bike with a sparkly banana seat and colored streamers on her handlebar grips. While we probably looked like The Little Rascals, her clothes were clean and her hair was adorned with a couple of fancy barrettes. Although she was older than us by several grades, we knew who she was, as she regularly babysat a toddler down the street. She asked what we were doing and when we explained, she turned up her nose. “I’ve been to Disneyland,” she said snottily, “and it’s a lot nicer.” I’ll never forget my buddy, Mike’s, reply: “Yeah? This is better than Disneyland because we made it.”

Better and More Powerful 

My mind races back to that terrific morning when I read Luke’s account of the Triumphal Entry, reminding me that, in many ways, I lived out this story in miniature. As Kathryn Matthews Huey points out in her insightful exegesis of the passage, Luke’s version features several key differences from the other gospels. First of all, there are no palms, no cries of hosanna in his retelling. The people lay down their coats to pave the way for Jesus. And the crowd is comprised entirely of His disciples. No one here can be accused of praising Jesus on Sunday and shouting “Crucify Him!” come Friday. This is an impromptu event that takes shape as it goes—a makeshift parade designed to imitate imperial processions. It is far better and more powerful than any over-produced Roman pomp because Jesus’s followers make it from scratch. It’s not a show, nor is it a command performance. It’s an outpouring of love and creativity. And, on some level, the parade makers surely realize this is their last hurrah. Jesus has told them He’ll be arrested and executed in Jerusalem. Something inside them senses their traveling days are over. The weather’s about to change; their time together is going to end.

A more natural response might compel the disciples to huddle around Jesus, damping the spotlight that finds Him wherever goes, and settling into a quiet place where they can savor their last days with Him. But timing is everything in this story. It’s the week before Passover. While Jesus and the disciples are entering Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, across town preparations are underway for another triumphal entry. Pontius Pilate is due to arrive with garrisons of Roman guards to ensure the holiday excitement won’t get out of hand. The masses along that parade route will shout, “Hail, Caesar!” and bow and scrape and clamor to show fealty to their oppressors. This is where we find the crowd that hasn’t the nerve to save one of its own from tyrannical injustice. These are the people who do and say as they’re told. There’s not the slightest hint of freedom or joy at this parade. Meanwhile, freedom and joy abound at the cobbled-together celebration on the other side of the city. It’s as if Jesus’s followers say, “What we’ve got is better because we made it.” They’re absolutely right to say that. This is their parade, built by their own hands to honor their king. And that’s what makes this ecstatic display of loyalty to Jesus so dangerous.

Power. Freedom. Courage. Joy.

Like the vigilant mama bears they presume to be, the Pharisees are alarmed at what’s going on. They rush to Jesus and demand He put a stop to this nonsense. Even though this activity places His own life at risk, He shrugs them off. “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out,” He says. (Luke 19.40) He understands what’s really happening. This is a people’s parade, not a royal procession. The excitement will eventually cool down, once the disciples discover how much energy is required to keep it going. For now, however, they need this big moment. Brief and dangerous though it may be, they need to know what it feels like to make something of their own. They need to find the power and courage within themselves to create a better alternative to Rome’s glitzy make-believe. Jesus puts the Pharisees on notice. This sham government that depends on their complicit support can’t last. They’re on the wrong side of history. Luke underscores their powerlessness in a very subtle way, too. After their appearance here, they drop out of the story. From here on out, Jesus’s fate rests in the hands of their authoritarian leaders. After all this time nagging at Jesus and trying to discredit Him, the Pharisees turn out to be nobodies. 

God’s new contract with humanity is signed at Calvary and guaranteed through Christ’s resurrection. But its terms are fleshed out here, in this crazy-quilt parade that sets everything in motion. To the natural eye, its borrowed donkey and ragtag carpeting and motley crew praising an uncrowned king may look silly compared to Rome’s mighty stallions and yards of purple silk and thousands shouting praise to an emperor. Yet what’s really going on is anything but silly. The Gospel of Christ is coming to life in the full exercise of power and freedom, courage and joy. That is Palm Sunday’s legacy to us. Power. Freedom. Courage. Joy. We are called to be parade makers, not parade watchers.

The disciples’ makeshift parade for their king bursts with unspoken declarations of power, freedom, courage, and joy.

When Love and Faithfulness Meet

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. (Psalm 85.10-11)

Reading the psalms often feels like stumbling on a private conversation in midstream. It’s hard to say exactly what prompted the discussion. But the closer one listens the keener one’s sense that something’s happened and the poets are working things out with God. Sometimes the verses burst with gratitude and praise, leaving little doubt that God has done a wonderful, altogether unexpected—and perhaps undeserved—favor for God’s people. Then again, there are psalms that appear to be composed after the relationship with God has completely fallen apart. The writers’ pens bleed with remorse and pleas for forgiveness.

The conversation—the side we hear, that is—in Psalm 85 sounds like a follow-up to a prior one in which the people begged God to forgive their infidelity. With the repentance taken care of, the poet seeks God’s help in getting things back on track. “You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You pardoned all their sin,” he reminds God. (v2) Yet he’s not quite sure if God’s ready to pick up the pieces and start over, causing us to suspect something very serious caused this latest flare-up in Israel’s perpetual on-again, off-again love affair with God. The psalmist beseeches his Maker with the tremulousness of a faithless suitor hoping to return to his lover’s good graces. “Will You be angry with us forever? Will You prolong Your anger to all generations?” he asks. (v5)

What’s more, he and those he writes for are exhausted. The longing to put the entire nasty episode behind them thrums in the writer’s panic: “Will You not revive us again, so that Your people may rejoice in You? Show us Your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us Your salvation.” (v6-7) The real question, of course, is, “Is God through with us?” (Massage the lyric slightly, put a steel guitar under it, and you’ve got a country-western let’s-give-it-one-more-try hit single.)

As if to silence his audience’s sobs, the poet says, “Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for the Lord will speak peace to God’s people.” (v8) He goes on to assure his listeners that God will restore them to right relationship. The closing stanza swells with hope. “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.”

If this conversation sounds familiar, it should. For five weeks now, we’ve trudged across Lent’s desert, wrestling with our failures, praying God’s forgiveness, and trusting God’s mercy and grace will find us. Confronting weakness is an exhausting process. We’re desperate to feel the security of God’s love. By this stage of the journey, we’re liable to panic, wondering why God would stay with us. But God is ever faithful. All the inner turmoil that Lent stirs up will be calmed. God will speak peace. “Surely God’s salvation is at hand for those who fear God,” verse 9 promises.

Unknowingly, the psalmist provides a glimpse of where our journey leads. When love and faithfulness meet, when righteousness and peace kiss each other, faithfulness will spring up from ground in the form of a rugged cross. And righteousness will look down from the sky, brimming from the tender eyes of our Savior. Is God through with us? Hardly. Is God ready to give it one more try? Oh yes. Always. This conversation that began in anguish weeks ago will end with the most forgiving kiss we'll ever know.

Resonance and Power

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3.30)

Our pastor opened her Ash Wednesday reflection this year with the story of a priest who asked his congregation, “What’s the difference between a stick in the mud and a flute?” After they pondered the riddle for a moment, he told them. “A stick in the mud is full of itself. But a flute has been emptied out to make music.” The metaphor was obvious. Lent is the time when we consciously empty ourselves out so that God’s Spirit can blow through us and transform our lives into song. Yet it occurred to me that I knew very little about how a flute works. So I looked it up and learned something very interesting.

The flute’s hollowed-out chamber is called a “resonator.” As air travels through the passageway, it’s directed across a series of holes that causes the air inside it to vibrate. The player changes the pitch by blocking the holes to alter the resonator's length and its corresponding frequency. This is why piccolos—basically, half-sized flutes—emit higher, somewhat shriller tones, while longer flutes have a lower, mellower register. So it turns out the keys have little to do with the depth and volume of a flute’s melody. It's not about what comes out of the flute, but what happens inside it. The more room a flute provides for its player’s breath, the more power it possesses and the more resonant its music becomes.

Of course, we know sticks in the mud make no music. Being full of themselves, they have no resonance. Worse still, they’re already dead and don’t know it. They’ve fallen from the tree that gave them life. They stand, not in their own strength, but in the muck and mire collected around them. If they make any sound at all, it’s the crack of being snapped in two to or the crackle of being tossed onto a fire.

Some time after he baptizes Jesus, John the Baptist’s disciples inform him that Jesus has started baptizing people on His own. He’s having great success, which alarms the Baptist’s followers. But John immediately discerns the situation. To challenge Jesus would indicate he’s full of himself. He will become useless to Jesus—a stick in the mud who’s lost touch with God’s purpose. “He must increase,” John says. “But I must decrease.” John empties himself out so the resonance of the Gospel can flow through him.

The less of us—our will, pride, and self—there is, the more melodious our lives become. In this season of emptying out, we examine ourselves thoroughly, searching for blockages that impede the flow of God’s Spirit in our lives. We get out of our own way to allow God to have God’s way. The less of us there is, the more resonant and powerful our music will be.

On High Alert

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? (Isaiah 58.6)

It’s Ash Wednesday. Once more we find our way to an altar, where we bow in humility and rise from our knees bearing a visible sign of repentance. As always, there will be a lot of thought and conversation today about what we’re “giving up” for Lent. We will leave the Ash Wednesday rite with the best of intentions and spend the next few weeks struggling to honor them.

To be sure, there is merit in self-denial. It teaches us discipline and retrains us so that we can master unhealthy reflexes and habits. Yet what’s supposed to come out of fasting? In Isaiah, we discover that it’s less about what we elect not to do, and more about relearning what we must do. In Isaiah 58, God says our piety and ritual—our subscription to religious obligation—mean nothing if they don't alert us to sacred obligations to those around us.

Sacrificing meat or candy bars or TV is, at best, a start. We do these things to keep us mindful that fasting is, above all, an act of faithfulness to a God Who desires meaningful change in our attitudes and behaviors. Yet if Lent starts and stops with what we’re “giving up,” we’ve not gone far enough. “Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high,” God warns. “Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?” (v4-5)

There’s a break in the text, making room for us ask, “If there’s more to this fasting thing than getting off our high horses and wallowing in our guilt, what can it be?” The answer is remarkably simple and direct: God expects our fast to focus on doing better in the here and now—not feeling sorry that we haven’t done so in the past or pledging improvement in the future. Listen very closely to God’s definition of an acceptable fast (quoted at length, because its emphasis cannot be overstated):

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindication shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and God will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

If we enter Lent’s desert intent only on adopting an ascetic mindset—grappling with self-denial and its attendant temptations, distancing ourselves from others to relish the benefits of solitude—we fall short of God’s demands. The Hebrew word for “fast” literally means, “to cover one’s mouth.” Thus, it stands to reason if we refuse to placate our hungers, we have more to give. What are we to do with our excess—this food we don’t eat, this extra time we have on our hands, these comforts we sacrifice? God tells us: we surrender them to others in need.

We enter Lent on high alert, extremely conscious that our wilderness adventure will open opportunities to share. Indeed, if we’re doing the real work of fasting, we seek out the less fortunate, the hungry, the afflicted, and the oppressed. We create the means of practicing Lent’s discipline. We look for distressed families we can feed. We extend ourselves to overworked parents and provide them respite by offering to sit with their children while they recharge their batteries. We seek out solitary coworkers or churchgoers and sit beside them. We find the senior who needs help cleaning up the house or running errands. We make time for the sick and grieving among us, assuring them they’re not alone. We embrace the ridiculed and misunderstood. We speak kindly to ears bruised by insults and cruelty. We touch the untouchable and love the unlovable.

We are surrounded by fasting opportunities.

We leave our comfort zones, because fasting should make us uncomfortable. It thrusts us into a desert of strangeness and uncertainty. It tests our wills and purifies our motives, leading us beyond the desire to be holy so that we become holy. Fasting has very little to do with what or how much we “give up.” It’s all about what or how much we give. And if we center our Lenten experience intent on caring for others, our wilderness will explode with new and abundant life.

Your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. (Isaiah 58.10-11)