What Palm Sunday Teaches Us About Endings
I never feel quite ready for all the emotions Palm Sunday stirs in me. This is the day people across the world recall the riveting story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and his equally precipitous fall from that lofty moment into betrayal, crucifixion and death. Every year it seems to draw out a reaction.
Last year I saw Jesus’ suffering and death as a reflection of the isolation, uncertainty, and threat of death we faced as the COVID pandemic rampaged. Those who took ill or had lost loved ones were experiencing a personal Calvary. We all carried a cross, whether it was the loss of income, the loneliness of separation from family and friends, or just the shear fear of what the future would hold.
Last year at this time, it still seemed unthinkable that the U.S. would lose 548,000 people (to date) — a mind-boggling number that is still difficult to grasp. I also never imagined we’d be where we are today with several viable vaccines, 48 million Americans fully vaccinated, churches resuming modified services, and many schools and businesses opening once again.
That is a resurrection story. It prompts me to think about how our lives are composed of a series of metaphoric deaths and resurrections. I tend to look at my life not so much as chapters, but as chiaroscuro volumes containing both darkness and light.
There was childhood, high school, college, a junior year abroad, post-graduate work, a career in print journalism, then broadcast journalism, and now my work as an author and retreat guide. There was my single life, then my married life. Every graduation, every time I left a job moved to a new city or into a new phase of my life felt like dying to an old self.
Some of these transitions arrived with painful uncertainly. I often couldn’t envision what lie ahead. Still, there always something new — and usually better — waiting for me just beyond. Even when something appeared to be a terrible setback that was never the end of the story.
The message of Holy Week — and Good Friday in particular — is that what appears certain on the surface is not always the last word. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux observed, there is so often “a real behind the real.”
In her wonderful Lenten booklet, “Not By Bread Alone,” spirituality writer Mary DeTurris Poust recommends that we take time this week to ponder the cross. “Put an actual cross — preferably an actual crucifix — somewhere prominent so you can see it throughout your day … Don’t just look at the cross, touch it. Hold onto it as you pray,”
I would add: think about the chapters, the volumes of your life. What were the triumphant moments, what were the dark episodes? When did a seemingly hopeless situation turn into an unexpected blessing? When were we tested, only to emerge, stronger, surer?
Crucifixion into resurrection. Suffering into joy. Death into new life.
As we celebrate Holy Week, whatever continuing crosses we might be carrying, can we remember that there likely will be another ending to the story?
