Easter Octave: Day 1
Palm Sunday: The Crown and the Cross.
by Stephen Noll, Contending Anglican:
The Palm Sunday Procession.
Jerusalem is a city not unlike Kampala, built on a series of hills, with a steep valley running between them. Today in Jerusalem pilgrims will be marching across those hills, from the Mount of Olives to the East, carrying palm branches and crying Hosanna, a reminder of that first Palm Sunday when Jesus of Nazareth made his famous, or was it his infamous, entry into the city.
Jerusalem, the old city at least, was a walled city with gates. One of those gates facing East is called the Golden Gate. Indeed the stones of the wall do seem golden in the early morning sunlight. Today the gate is walled up, and no one can enter. Legend has it that the Messiah when he comes, will be the One who can open this gate. But in Jesus’ day, the gate was open, and it was to this gate that the figure on the donkey made his way that first Palm Sunday.
Onlookers on the Wall
I want you to imagine two men, one standing on the top of the city wall, a Pharisee, a follower of the Scriptures and God’s Law. Another man stands below him beside the gate. He is a Jewish tax collector, a publican. Until recently, he minded a local tax office. Then he had met one of his colleagues named Zacchaeus, a short little man, who had told him about the Teacher from Nazareth, who had performed miracles of healing wherever he went. He became a proselyte, a seeker of the Teacher.
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