Palm Sunday

As we gathered outside the church today for the liturgy of the palms, I noticed a rabbit, sitting not twenty feet away, his ears perked as he listened and watched.

I turned to my friend Judy who was standing next to me and said, “Even the animals gather.”  The birds sang, the rabbit watched and I realized the ability to worship was not just something God had gifted to mankind.

Palm Sunday has always been my favorite Sunday.  When I was little Palm Sunday meant getting palm fronds at church, something that was in short supply in upstate New York.

And now as an adult, I find myself moved in unexpected ways during the Palm Sunday service.  I was the narrator this morning for the Passion reading.  And several times while I was reading, I felt goosebumps pop up on my arms.  There is a moment after Jesus dies where I’m instructed, as narrator, to pause.

Silence is a powerful thing.  And the silence after Jesus’ death carries an immeasurable weight.  I can almost imagine that scene.  I can see the two Marys and the others sitting at the cross.  And that moment when he dies, I can imagine that it was so silent, that not only did no one speak, not only were those birds and animals silent, that the only thing to be heard was the beating of your own heart.

It is the start of Holy Week and a time of reflection and preparation.  It is a time when we are faced so bluntly and so brutally with our own mortality (yes, even the Son of God can die).  But it is also a time of resurrection, when we are reminded that just when we feel like the weight of the world is too much to bear, there is salvation and rebirth and new life.