Cloak Monday?

Palms Sunday – the procession to end all processions. Except in Matthew there are no palms and it happens on Monday. A small affair – too small to attract Roman attention. And yet so full of symbol and promise, confrontation and subversion. Jesus subverts the symbols of power and authority. The would be king on a pack animal, not the war horse Pilate rode, as he rides towards his coronation on Golgotha. He confronts the corrupt powers of the temple, clearing the way, reclaiming it as a place of God’s healing and compassion. We join the outsiders: those who live outside the city, those who lived outside the margins of God’s compassion and yet included by the prophet from Nazareth; and shout “Hosanna to the Son of David”. Or do we stand with the insiders, bemused and confused by the whole thing.
As we join this procession and walk to Good Friday we are asked how this story affects us, influences us, changes us?

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