Palm Sunday is a day of contrasts pivoting between happy triumph and inevitable crucifixion. Palm Sunday is a convergence of stories of people, many of whom were closest to Jesus. Each person in these stories brings his or her own relationship, strength, and agenda to what Jesus faced at this point in his ministry.
What I want to do through this long section of scripture is to listen to all of these people who were part of the Holy week events. More than just listening we want to understand what their responses and experiences have to teach us.

How do these stories help us face the worst that life has to offer? How do these stories offer us the opportunity to question how death and betrayal or a script of failure defines our lives?

Kilmeny read from Luke 19 which tells what happened prior to the disciples and Jesus’s arrival in the upper room. Let’s begin there as Jesus prepared to face the worst that life had to offer. Consider the person who supplied the colt that would fulfill the scripture that foretold how the “King comes triumphant, victorious and humble riding on a colt.” The owner(s) of the colt’s role was to do what Jesus wanted him to do, to simply supply the colt for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

In the upper room later that day, Jesus sets the tone and agenda. He underscores the finality of this meal and alludes to the transfer of his ministry into the disciples’ hands.

What is the disciples’ response? In the upper room, the disciples dispute who will be the greatest. They desire their own prominence and want to be recognized. Peter wants to do the right thing and follow Jesus. He pledges to follow Jesus to prison and or death.

Jesus confronts the disciples and Peter to say it is not about your grandiosity but about who embraces strengthening and encouraging one another.

Later after Jesus was arrested, Peter is confronted with the dilemma of whether to fulfill his promise to follow Jesus to prison or to death. Peter’s courage erodes when he curses and lies giving into his fear. Peter realizes his own failure that he could not do what he had promised and weeps bitterly.

At the Mount of Olives, Jesus goes off alone to pray and asks the disciples to do the same. The disciples fall asleep showing their own human frailty. They fail to even do simple things Jesus asked. They did not understand the finality of what was really happening. Jesus was in the last hours of his life, but they slept their way through it.

At the last supper, Jesus had also predicted that one of the disciples would betray him. At the Mount of Olives, Judas led Pilate’s men to Jesus. Why would Judas of all people, the treasurer be untrustworthy and commit the ultimate betrayal? Was he saving Jesus from himself? Had Judas been promised that no harm would come to Jesus? We will never know but his suicide points to the fact that he just could not live with what he had done.

We meet the Roman Centurion at Jesus’ cross. Even as one that was under Roman authority, he recognized and had the courage to call out the righteousness and holiness of who Jesus was and declared Jesus’ innocent when the trial and crucifixion were the Romans’ way of proclaiming Jesus guilty.

At the same time, the woman closest to Jesus and other acquaintances stood at a distance. They probably felt helpless and hopeless; unable to change the situation. They watched and waited.

After Jesus’ death, Joseph of Arimathea, a Jewish leader and sympathetic to Jesus’s ministry, had waited expectantly for the kingdom of God. He wanted Jesus’s body to be treated with dignity. Joseph was willing to take the risk as a Jewish leader to help bring closure and compassion to what had been a brutal murder.

All these people participated according to their own understanding, level of commitment, and their ability to get outside of themselves and their own needs to be present in Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. Each person experienced the pain, agony, and terror that Jesus faced. What did that mean for them?

How do these stories help us face the worst that our lives have to offer? Our temptation may be to demonize those people who were human and faced their own imperfections. It is easy to see these people as either heroes or as failures, but more important to see ourselves in the people who were there.

We each ask ourselves: Do I do the simple things that Jesus asks me to do? In what ways do I embrace strengthening and encouraging others? Do I stay alert and pray as Jesus taught? Will I have the courage to recognize Jesus’s presence and acknowledge the truth of what the world calls foolish? Am I willing to take the risk as a leader to help bring healing and compassion?

In the same way, as Jesus said to Peter he says to us, “I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail, go and strengthen one another.” May it be so with us, this Holy Week and beyond. Amen.