This year, Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday, April 10. The Gospels recall with worshipful fanfare how Jesus enters the holy city of Jerusalem. The city is swollen with pilgrims who have arrived to celebrate Passover — the great Jewish celebration of the emancipation of the oppressed Hebrews from slavery in Egypt.
This day also invites us to profound reflection. Think about it: we find the world on the brink of a most momentous event. The very Son of God was about to be handed over, betrayed, abused, murdered. There was, in a sense, going to be a death in God within days. The universe was about to turn the corner from endless darkness back toward the Light — that Light which the darkness cannot overcome. All that is at stake cannot be overestimated or overstated.
Amidst all these tremendous concerns, the Palm Sunday story begins with a rather mundane one: Jesus needs transportation into the city. He dispatches a pair of disciples to obtain animals for him to enter Jerusalem properly. The two go to a nearby village, and just as he had said, they find a colt tied securely alongside its mother. As they loose the animals, the owners appear and demand to know what’s going on. Jesus has told them how to respond. “The Lord needs it,” they say.
With these animals, Jesus triumphal proceeds into Jerusalem. To anticipate Palm Sunday — and then Good Friday and Easter — I think we need to return to that humble prologue of the bigger, flashier moment. It speaks deeply into our lives today.
We need to turn our attention back to those animals, tied up and awaiting release. Here is the question it puts to us: do you find yourself tied down by something that limits your freedom, prevents you from fully realizing your potential, or distracts you from the ideals you believe in and long for? If you are like me, it’s probably not just one thing, but many things.
Listening to this story, we can ask: what needs untying in you and me? How are you tied down? What is part of your life or within you that needs to be loosed, released, let go — so you can join the triumphal march of life as a full participant in God’s redeeming work? Many of us feel bound to situations or things in our past that weigh us down. Yet we may, consciously or unconsciously, long for freedom. To be untied is a word of grace about how God chooses to be with us.
And then remember what Jesus taught those disciples: they were to be set loose because “the Lord needs them.” I believe that is for us, too. The Lord needs us. Each of us has been created with purpose and given diverse, unique gifts by the Holy Spirit — given to us to use. We are called to be the body of Christ: hands, feet, voices that work for the Kingdom of God and serve others in Christ’s name. The Lord needs us and doesn’t want any part of us tied down by those things, attitudes, or behaviors that prevent us from getting that work done.
That is how we join the holy processional — by responding to his call and untying all that needs untying. “The Lord needs them.” The Lord needs us, too. Each and every one of us. Amen.
Grace & Peace,