Palm Sunday: a day of two crowds

Fr Daniel Sandham, pastor of St John the Evangelist Anglican Church, Brownswood, gave the following homily at the Palm Sunday Ecumenical Procession in Finsbury Park yesterday.

Today is a day of two crowds. Firstly there is the crowd of ‘Hosanna’, the crowd we represent here in this liturgy of palms and procession. This is the crowd which claims Jesus as king, as Messiah, as the one who comes in the name of the Lord. This is the crowd which, with palms in their hands, welcomes Jesus into his city.

Then there is another crowd. Later on in today’s liturgy we hear the Passion narrative. And, in this narrative, we encounter a very different crowd. This crowd is a crowd which shouts ‘Crucify’, which convicts an innocent man, and demands his death. This is a crowd, with fury in their voices, which vies for the blood of Jesus. So, two crowds: one which acclaims Jesus with ‘Hosanna’, the other which condemns him with ‘Crucify’. I wonder which crowd you see yourself in. It’s almost certainly the crowd which shouts ‘Hosanna’. Of course we want to be a part of the crowd which acclaims, affirms and celebrates Jesus. But the reality is that we are so often in the crowd which cries ‘Crucify’. For it is by the weakness of our human nature, by our misuses and abuses of God's grace, by the shortcomings in our relationships with God and our neighbours, that we crucify our Lord. It is our sin which cries ‘Crucify’, and sends the Lord of life to his death on Calvary.

In this Holy Week we seek to enter into the mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. We do so because it is this mystery of Christ’s redemptive work which saves us from our sin. By his passion we are set free; set free so that, in a week’s time, we can be part of another crowd: a crowd which, with fear and trembling, with awe and wonder, beholds its risen Lord.

May we, as we enter into this paschal mystery, do so with great care and solemnity, so that we may be brought through the passion and death of our Lord to be made partakers of his risen life.

Amen.

See also: North London Churches gather for Palm Sunday procession www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=22226