Last Sunday marked the beginning of Passiontide, being the two weeks leading to Good Friday and Easter Sunday. With the passage of time, Passion Sunday has become merged with Palm Sunday that we will mark this Sunday with the dramatised reading of the Passion, the events of Holy Week, beginning with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, seen by the crowds as a triumphant occasion.
I think we can be sure that Jesus knew that his entry into Jerusalem would lead to trouble and that his life was in danger. I wonder, was it only the crowds who considered the entry as being a journey of triumph? What was he thinking?
As I write this on the 25th March, the day on which we mark the Annunciation, the commemorating of Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary of the Incarnation, we have also witnessed the Installation today of Sarah Mullally as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. During her sermon, Sarah referred to the Annunciation and, in response to Gabriel’s statement that ‘nothing will be impossible with God’, Mary said ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord’; a scene and phrases that have been uppermost in her mind as she has discerned her calling to her new role as head of the world-wide Anglian Communion.
That led me to wondering if Jesus remembered those words of the Angel Gabriel and of his Mum, Mary, as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?
With prayers for a spiritually meaningful Holy Week
Nigel