A Lonely Walk

⁹Have mercy on me, O LORD, for I am in trouble;
   my eye is consumed with sorrow, and also my throat and my belly.
¹⁰For my life is wasted with grief, and my years with sighing;
   my strength fails me because of affliction, and my bones are consumed.
¹¹I have become a reproach to all my enemies and even to my neighbors, a dismay to those of my acquaintance;
   when they see me in the street they avoid me.
¹²I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind;
   I am as useless as a broken pot.
¹³For I have heard the whispering of the crowd; fear is all around;
   they put their heads together against me; they plot to take my life.
¹⁴But as for me, I have trusted in you, O LORD.
   I have said, “You are my God.
¹⁵My times are ‘in your hand;
   rescue me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.
¹⁶Make your face to shine upon your servant,
   and in your loving kindness save me.”

Here we are, standing along the road into Jerusalem, waiting for Jesus, without a palm branch to be had. What are we to do? Just like many, we will just give our coat instead. Put it down on the road to welcome Jesus. Show him that he is your Lord and savior. We stand along this road in a unique time and situation. This great celebration of Jesus’ passion must be done in isolation. The central celebration of the church. A celebration that is 2,000 years old and may have been the basis for Mark’s account of Jesus’ last week – his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, last supper, humiliation on the cross and resurrection – as some scholars have suggested.

We have been processing with palms for a long time – and washing feet, and stripping the Altar, and experiencing the darkness of the tomb, and hearing once again the passion of Jesus – but now we must go it alone. Jesus did. Yes he had his disciples and the people who lined the road into Jerusalem, but when their lives were threatened they abandoned him willy-nilly. In the hour of his greatest need – the hour when friends and family would be a comfort – they abandoned him. He saw it coming, the betrayal, the inability to stay awake, the self-interest, yet he continued his walk to the cross.

We too have abandoned him in our lives. We have chased after our own 30 pieces of silver. We have not paid attention to his call to repent, we have denied knowing him (by action, if not by word). Maybe, then, this week for us will be a greater reminder of Jesus’ passion than all the celebrations of the past. With nothing but that which is on our back we welcome Jesus to Jerusalem and into our lives – lives that are full of lost opportunities, missteps, selfish desires, sin, and death – and ask him to heal us. Now that our lives have become a reproach to others, when we are called to avoid close physical contact, when we feel forgotten like dead men and women, when we have become as useless as broken pots, Jesus comes to us and calls us, “Pick up your cross and follow.” You can do this because your time is in Jesus’ hand, and in this time of loneliness, trouble and sorrow, Jesus’ face shines upon you. For it is you for whom Jesus walked to Calvary.