Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever. Let Israel say: “His love endures forever.” Open for me the gates of the righteous; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord. ... This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter. I will give You thanks, for You answered me; You have become my salvation. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes. The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad. Lord, save us! Lord, grant us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you. The Lord is God, and He has made His light shine on us. With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will praise You; You are my God, and I will exalt You. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever. (Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29)

 

 

     Every year there's a big Easter parade held in The Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto. I was reading about it the other day. Apparently there's a bit of controversy about it this year. Now, you might ask (and it would be a good question) what could possibly be controversial about an Easter parade? Well, it seems that traditionally the parade has included among its marchers many of the local politicians in that area of the city, but this year the organizers put out an edict – the politicians are welcome to attend the parade, and stand at the side of the road along with the other spectators, but they're not going to be allowed to march in the parade. There's a couple of reasons that have been bandied about for that. First is that traditionally one of the marchers is the Mayor of Toronto, and apparently there's some concern that Rob Ford may not represent exactly the kind of “family values” that the organizers want to see in an Easter parade. And it's been noted that in recent years some of the politicians marching have been conspicuous for wearing orange and carrying orange bags of candy to hand out – which happens to denote their partisan affiliation as well, and the organizers have decided that an Easter parade isn't the appropriate place for partisanship. Whatever the reason, the politicians are quite upset by this. I haven't seen anyone suggest that the organizers are concerned or that the community is upset, but apparently the politicians want their moment in the sun, and standing at the side of the road watching the Beaches Easter Parade isn't enough sunlight! They want to be right in the middle of things. 

 

     I don't know if I have sympathy for the politicians or not to be honest. It is, after all, an Easter parade – and the invitation to parade with Jesus is certainly given to all of us. Whether the Beaches Easter Parade really qualifies as a Christian event is, of course, open to interpretation. I am aware of one local councillor who apparently marched a few years ago dressed in a bunny costume – and as far as I can remember there's no bunnies in the Bible! But the controversy over the parade could be considered symbolic, I suppose – and it perhaps reminds us of a point: the invitation to march behind Jesus is there for everyone, and the organizers of that parade – who, I suppose, would be the church, which so often sets itself up in judgement about how does and doesn't qualify as a Christian – seem to me to be on some pretty shaky ground when they start to deny someone's right to join the parade.

 

     Palm Sunday, you see, is essentially a description of a parade. Oh, it's not a parade like the Beaches Easter parade – but a parade it is. Think of these words from Mark's Gospel: 

 

 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,  “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

 

     Here you have a picture of Jesus and His band of followers parading into Jerusalem. A parade is a good description of what was happening: people were excited; people were joyful; people were crying out in happiness at what they were seeing. What we have – at least in this part of the Palm Sunday story  - is surely a symbol of the way in which Christians today should react and respond to Jesus. We're called to follow Jesus. We're called to lead others in following Jesus. We're called to show joy, excitement and happiness as a result of our relationship with Jesus. And yet, all too often the excitement seems lost, the joy seems missing, the happiness seems elusive. But think of these words from Psalm 118:

 

The Lord is God, and He has made His light shine on us. With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will praise You; You are my God, and I will exalt You.

 

     When we walk with Jesus – Who is God With Us – we're walking in the light of God, and it's a joyous thing. I've been talking about valleys the last couple of weeks. We all get into valleys from time to time. Stuck somewhere, with no obvious exit or escape. And that can be frightening, and that can be frustrating. But the light of God somehow brings us through when we join that “festal procession” that today is composed of those who walk alongside Jesus. But we don't want to paint to rosy a picture of what it is to be a Christian, as if Christians are never going to experience hardships or difficulties. That would be ridiculous. We may walk through the dark valleys with the light of God leading us, but often (and perhaps usually) it's cyclical. The dark valleys come and go. We're in; we're out. We sin, we fail, we make mistakes (however you want to put it) and we can easily find ourselves trapped back in the darkness – confused, ashamed, guilt-ridden. After all, the joy of Palm Sunday was followed by the horror of Good Friday, which was followed by the ecstasy of Easter, which was followed by the darkness of persecution directed against Jesus' disciples. There are ups and downs. But the downs don't have to trap us, because, if we're open to God's leading, once again we will find that light of God leading us out. I'm not suggesting that we just have licence to keep falling into the bad behaviours because God will get us out. Bad behaviours have bad consequences. God expects us to be transformed – which is a life long process. There will always be ups and downs, but the goal of the Christian life is that increasingly as time goes on there will be more ups than downs, bad behaviours will fade away, guilt will stop burdening us, and we will move on.

 

     In the meantime, we walk with Jesus. We rejoice, we cry out “Hosanna!” Because we recognize that with the King of kings, we walk in the light that takes away any darkness.