Palm Sunday People

Who were these people?

The city was busy.

Teeming with Passover revellers.

Why did they all feel the need

to come and welcome Jesus?

We were hoping, for once, to keep a low profile.

Tired of attracting big crowds wherever we went with Jesus

we thought, at least, we’d have a quiet Passover

Thought everyone would be too busy

with their own family preparations

to take notice of ours.

And it was also time that

Jesus got out of the limelight

We could tell the authorities didn’t like it

they were getting really antsy

It wasn’t just Jesus

though he kept attracting unwelcome attention

but, all the people, it seemed

were getting pretty feisty

and the authorities were getting nervous

clamping down on the most minor infractions.

Definitely NOT the time to be processing into the city

even on a donkey!

It was only a matter of time

before a ban would be imposed

on public gatherings

and demonstrations

the kind that had been breaking out everywhere recently.

So we’d hoped to enter the city quietly

to keep below the radar.

But, before we got anywhere near,

we could hear the shouts of the crowd

not angry, insurrectionist shouts

but the shouts of revellers

out for a picnic.

Maybe they were hoping for more miracles

a healing or two

or to be fed some more of those amazing stories

Jesus seemed to

make up as he went along.

Whatever they came looking for

they were not disappointed

There was Jesus

seemingly innocuous

riding on a donkey

but the people saw it

as something different altogether.

They always seemed to read into everything Jesus did

Saw mockery, even subversion

to the political era of oppression.

Why was it Jesus they flocked to?

Why turn their attention on him.

surely that day, the people signed his death warrant

as surely as if they had shouted

Crucify him!

 Liz Crumlish 2011


Another Palm Sunday Reflection here.