April is a month for us to keep our feet firmly on the ground until the moment when we jump for joy. The problem is that we are tempted to leap too early. We need to keep our feet firmly on the ground, even on Palm Sunday. Apart from Jesus, who was riding into town that day,

Jerusalem was treated to the sight of a bunch of pedestrian disciples, walking along, cheering their man on as he entered into the holy city. It’s not to say that excitement was absent, with all the cries of “hosanna” and the route carpeted with greenery and clothes. (Mark 11: 8-9) It’s natural and right to get caught up in the atmosphere of anticipation and celebration since following a notable ministry this prophet is coming to

Jerusalem, the centre of affairs to sort things out. It’s natural and right that we should reflect all this in our Palm Sunday worship but it would be premature to jump for joy.

 It would be premature to because Palm Sunday, for all its excitement has, lurking in the background, the prospect of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. On both these days our feet are kept firmly on the ground. On Maundy Thursday we gather in the evening to worship, to share bread and wine as Jesus and disciples once shared bread and wine in a borrowed room in

Jerusalem. Our feet are on the ground for this is an occasion where material things are to the fore – bread and wine, the material products of God’s material creation – even though in the hands and words of Jesus they are employed to speak also of other things. Our feet are kept on the ground through observing mundane, human failings. Judas leaves the room and company of Jesus, both literally and metaphorically, as he departs to betray Jesus to the human authorities.

Jumping for joy must also be deferred on the following day, Good Friday. Not only are our feet kept on the ground but we wish the very ground might swallow us up. No cause for jumping about in celebration as we remember and re-enact the suffering and death of Jesus, both in our shared acts worship and walks of witness. One of my most uncomfortable Good Friday experiences was when I found myself drafted into a choir that was then directed to sing joyful Christian hymns at an ecumenical gathering on Good Friday. In our singing we were inviting one and all to jump for joy, but doing so in a setting that demanded sadness and sombre contemplation. Even the belief that God is using this horrific event to bring about reconciliation with the world is tinged with sadness that it should take this to achieve the goal. And then, at last, comes Easter Day.  The political and religious tensions, the human failings and transgressions that were in the background the previous Sunday and which resulted in Jesus’ crucifixion are shown not to have the last word as far as God is concerned.  Disciples who had used their feet to walk into

Jerusalem and to flee when Jesus was arrested are now, one and all, jumping for joy because they are convinced that dead though he was he is now alive.  This Palm Sunday and Holy Week we are all invited once again to make the journey, feet on the ground, grounded in the material, even dragged down to despair.  Then on Easter Day we are invited to experience, along with the disciples, the full impact, the contrast, when Jesus who was crucified, died and buried is raised to new life by God.  In their company it would be very hard not to jump for joy on Easter Day.