Peace March

  Entry into the City - John August Swanson

Yesterday we sang a Palm Sunday hymn and watched as a happy group of kids, including our two young grandsons,  paraded around the sanctuary waving palm branches. Palm/Passion Sunday was always such an important part of Holy Week for me while in congregational ministry and still is. 

I thought of Brian McLaren's book We Make the Road by Walking, a book about spiritual formation, and the title "Peace March" for the brief chapter on Palm Sunday. He invites readers to imagine the walk with Jesus from Bethany into the city of Jerusalem with a growing crowd of peasants who wave branches, likely unaware that theirs is a counter-march to the show of might which Pilate's military parade into the city represents. 

 

Parades are curious entities. with an energy which can be both life-affirming and menacing, sometimes at the same event. Many of us can recall the October Revolution parades in the old Soviet Union which originally celebrated the overthrow of the czar in !917 but became a display of military might during the Cold War. Last year the emperor wannabe of the United States, Donald Trump, proposed an expensive military parade but it didn't take place in part because of the cost, but also the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Pentagon. It would have looked eerily like the parades staged by "Little Rocket Man" in the totalitarian state of North Korea.

Other parades challenge the status quo in a peaceful way. Our family participated in a march through the streets of Halifax in 2003 to protest the Iraq War ,one of 600 in cities around the world to do so. Did we expect to change the mind of President Bush and his administration? Perhaps not. It was important to stand up and be counted, just the same, and or course that proved to be a disastrous war. 

 

Remember the Pink Hat Women's March in Washington in 2017? There was a definite edge to that huge protest, but it remained peaceful. 

We are also aware of the Global Climate Strike marches around the world by students protesting inaction on climate change. These young people have been chastised by adults, including politicians, who dither themselves over how to respond to what is perhaps the greatest threat to peace on the planet. It's significant that the fearless leader of this movement, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Eat your heart out, Emperor Donald. 

It's important to remember that Jesus' entry into Jerusalem may have seemed celebratory, and peaceful, but it challenged the world order sufficiently to lead to his death. We can continue our walk with Jesus, the Christ, wherever he may lead us.

Is Palm/Passion Sunday important for you? Do peace/protest marches matter? Does following Jesus still make a difference?