PALM SUNDAY 2020 AMID COVID-19

It has been as uncommon a Palm Sunday as I can recall. Born during WWII, my memory doesn’t hold a recollection of what must surely have been an atypical Palm Sunday or two. Palm Sundays that I remember as a child embraced colour. Flowers embellished the front of the church. It was a celebrative ambiance. Women wore stylish hats and pastel shaded attire to church. Those were days when men and boys wore suits, shirts and ties to church, and it was standard and it felt respectable. In the afternoon our family would drive to Niagara Falls where we would walk through the Floral Showhouse to enjoy orchids and tropical flowers. 

Christine remembers Palm Sunday of her childhood in Britain with a song. Who would have guessed? I’m facetious. Her life and career has been music. “Hosanna, loud hosanna, the little children sang, through pillared court and temple the lovely anthem rang. To Jesus, who had blessed them close folded to his breast, the children sang their praises, the simplest and the best.” She remembers waiving palm fronds or other branches. 

Perhaps again today our modest, isolated at home worship will be the simplest and the best adoration we can possibly offer to our Saviour. We know the outward adornment doesn’t count for much when God is looking at our hearts. Today, may the whole multitude of Christ’s disciples worldwide rejoice and praise God with loud voices for all of his mighty works and may we say, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!

A WORTHY HERO

I am having one of my ‘senior’ hours just now, having awoken at 3 am, and checked some art websites, some email like this, and now will settle into the middle of my current novel, reading Lee Child’s ’61 Hours.’ His protagonist in this multi-novel series is Jack Reacher. And over the past year I have read many of his works. Reacher is an interesting character, fascinating because he is unlike me in every conceivable way, standing 6’5”, an ex military man, with combat skills and awareness of other people’s weakness that makes him fearless; a vagabond of sorts who is constantly travelling across the USA, always on the move, without any possessions whatsoever, carries no backpack or anything else, purchases new inexpensive clothing every few days and discards the old stuff, and wherever he goes, he stumbles into some fascinating scenario where he has a string of heroic moments at the end of which, I as a reader feel relief from the resolution, strength from living Reacher’s story, eagerness to learn more about him as he moves on.

I can’t explain my fascination with this diversion from personal reality, in which my inadequacies are all too apparent. But I am aware that Reacher is not my personal hero. Jesus is my hero.

He is so much more than that to me of course, but Jesus is a bonafide hero. We seldom think of him in such terms, but if we do revisit his earth-time story, his character stands out compellingly against the culture and values of his time and certainly of our time.