Here we are just two days into this beautiful Advent season and our gospel reading for today is the Palm Sunday story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Really? What’s going on with this lectionary? But as I reread this story, I noticed Palm Sunday’s allusions to Advent enriching my life of faith and inviting me to a season of joyous anticipation and celebration.
The connection between Palm Sunday and Advent is not that difficult to ascertain. But I am aided by the poets who see this connection and capture its sublime beauty. Listen to the Advent allusions of Richard Wilbur’s poem, “A Stable Light Is Lighted” (this also is the text of Hymn 104 in our hymnal).
A stable lamp is lighted
whose glow shall wake the sky;
the stars shall bend their voices,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
and straw like gold shall shine;
a barn shall harbour heaven,
a stall become a shrine.
This child through David’s city
shall ride in triumph by;
the palm shall strew its branches,
and every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
though heavy, dull and dumb,
and lie within the roadway
to pave his kingdom come.
Palm Sunday, at its best, is a day on which we enthusiastically shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” The subsequent “holy” week and this entire Advent season, though, challenge me to go outside my fear, doubt, and despair to meet the coming Messiah; it insists that I cannot understand the meaning of the beginning of the story until I have seen it through to its end. Reflecting on the Palm Sunday story now—at the beginning of Advent—reminds me that salvation comes in the least expected, most unforeseen way: a baby born of a virgin and laid in a manger, a man from Nazareth riding on a donkey, a “King of the Jews” crucified between thieves, an empty tomb, wind and fire, bread and wine, a trumpet call out of nowhere, yet heard by everyone. That, it seems to me, is the real message of Advent.
BOB DIBBLE
THE DAILY OFFICE Psalms 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 | Amos 2:6-16 | 2 Peter 1:1-11 | Matthew 21:1-11
