Palm Sunday.
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
The crowds were singing their praises and hosannas for him.
But the leaders and authorities were worried and
were plotting on how to get rid of him.
He rebukes them:
Why waste your breath moaning at the crowd?
Nothing can be done to stop the shouting
If every tongue was still, the noise would still continue
The rocks and stones themselves would start to sing:
Hosanna Heysanna Sanna Sanna Ho
Sanna Hey Sanna Ho Sanna
Hey J C, J C you’re alright by me
Sanna Ho Sanna Hey Superstar
Jesus was addressing some deeper in the heart of men;
while the Sanhedrin was trying to preserve and protect the status quo.
The religious practices of the Pharisees and Sadducees was based on exclusion:
* Gentiles and the Samaritans did not belong to the People of God.
* Only the clean and ritually clean were allowed to make offerings in the temple.
* The poor, the sick, the deformed were considered unclean and thus, excluded from the Temple rites.
Jesus taught and proclaimed a Gospel of inclusion.
To those who were thus excluded, Jesus proclaimed:
Sing to me a song but not for me alone
Sing out for yourselves for you are blessed
There is not one of you who cannot win the kingdom
The slow, the suffering, the quick, the dead.
The musical Jesus Christ Superstar is a modern rendition of the Christ story.
If Christ were alive today in flesh and blood, where would he be?
What would he be doing?
I imagine this and I see Christ out in the streets, joining the March For Our Lives.
Yes, while the leaders of the people were out playing golf
Or, tweeting about an upcoming movie.
I can see him ministering to the slow, the suffering, the quick, the dead.
Today, they are all around us:
the homeless, the hungry and those who have no one or nothing.
And if we do not see nor hear them,
the rocks and stones themselves would start to sing
and proclaim to us Jesus’ message of love, compassion and inclusion.