Easter in Jerusalem: Palm Sunday

It's the week leading to Easter. This is by far the holiest of seasons for Christians in this land. Christmas is not nearly as big as in the West. I think partly because mercantilism has co-opted Christmas to some extent in the West. But more, perhaps, because people here understand much better the events noted during Holy Week. Jesus coming to Jerusalem for Passover. A local boy, one of the people's own. Not a head of state, he had nevertheless been talking about a Kingdom. But a very, very different kind of Kingdom from the one people knew as they lived under an Empire's occupation. What he was saying about justice and helping the poor, sick, widowed, and imprisoned was getting people's attention. It was getting the Empire's attention, too.

So before long he was arrested and executed. That sequence of events and the suffering it entailed is not so very foreign to the lives of many people here. The Cross enters all our lives at some time, but I think maybe people here understand the Cross in ways that perhaps we in the West cannot. So I believe these events of commemoration this week carry people here through the Cross and on to new life and hope.

And, oh, how they remember! The first event of the week was Palm Sunday. To remember the way Jesus did it, thousands of people gather on the Mt. of Olives at Bethphage and process down the Mt of Olives, across the valley, and into Jerusalem. It's a wondrously joyful procession. Alot of music, alot of laughing, alot of joy in reliving the way that that man came into town a long time ago and turned the world upside down.

I'll let the photos in the slideshow take it from here. I hope they capture some of the joy for you.