Passion / Palm Sunday
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.
-- Psalm 118:19
Psalm 118 is thought to be one of the hymns that Jesus and the disciples sang as they completed the Passover meal and prepared to make their way to the Mount of Olives. If so, its rehearsal of the faith and the steadfast love of God may well have been a source of strength for Jesus in that final journey. It is apparently one of the psalms that the early church turned to in order to understand the tragedy of Jesus' death. From the perspective of the other side of the cross and resurrection, it is easy to read the psalm in light of Jesus' experience. His triumphal entry could be seen as his invitation to the people of Jerusalem to respond to the grace of God made visible through him. "Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord."
As those first Christians struggled to understand the events that followed, they could draw strength from the psalmist's words: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone." Jesus became the embodiment of the whole experience of rejection that Israel had experienced and the steadfast hope in the faithfulness of God that sustained Israel. Now Jesus' rejection became not an unmitigated disaster but a further revelation of the mysterious way of God to triumph over darkness. Even in the midst of what appeared to be a tragic turn of events, both Israel before, and then Jesus, and finally his disciples could say, "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." For the contemporary church, as they recognize themselves as the body of Christ, they can draw strength from this same psalm as the psalm celebrates the triumph of God over historical circumstances. "The Lord is God, and he has given us light."
-- Psalm 118:19
Psalm 118 is thought to be one of the hymns that Jesus and the disciples sang as they completed the Passover meal and prepared to make their way to the Mount of Olives. If so, its rehearsal of the faith and the steadfast love of God may well have been a source of strength for Jesus in that final journey. It is apparently one of the psalms that the early church turned to in order to understand the tragedy of Jesus' death. From the perspective of the other side of the cross and resurrection, it is easy to read the psalm in light of Jesus' experience. His triumphal entry could be seen as his invitation to the people of Jerusalem to respond to the grace of God made visible through him. "Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord."
As those first Christians struggled to understand the events that followed, they could draw strength from the psalmist's words: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone." Jesus became the embodiment of the whole experience of rejection that Israel had experienced and the steadfast hope in the faithfulness of God that sustained Israel. Now Jesus' rejection became not an unmitigated disaster but a further revelation of the mysterious way of God to triumph over darkness. Even in the midst of what appeared to be a tragic turn of events, both Israel before, and then Jesus, and finally his disciples could say, "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." For the contemporary church, as they recognize themselves as the body of Christ, they can draw strength from this same psalm as the psalm celebrates the triumph of God over historical circumstances. "The Lord is God, and he has given us light."
