Palm Sunday always finds the church back out on the road, moving, traveling in something of a parade caravan from Galilee to Jerusalem. It's a fairly straight shot, I'm told, up and down some hills, and through a mountainous region, but without many places where you could take a wrong turn.

Maybe you wouldn't need a map to make that route, but a person like me with no sense of direction would have liked one anyway. I panic if the Thomas Guide isn't easily reachable in the car, although it's a bit of a problem now that I have to put my glasses on to read it! But even so, sometimes maps can be confusing to me. I can stare at one and literally not be able to figure out which way I'm headed or which way to turn. So, I like those "trip tiks" from the Automobile Club. A map specifically designed with your route in mind. Turning each page, it is easy to get from where you start to where you're going. It's a map just for you. And you don't even have to know north from south.

Jesus of Nazareth must have been born with an internal trip tik in his heart and mind, specially prepared from before the beginning of time just for him, mapping out this final trek south through the hills of Galilee, his homeland, the place of most of his ministry, to Jerusalem, the capital city and center of political and religious authority. An internal trip tik led him through farming areas and forests, along that dusty road. He made his way along on a borrowed colt, and as he entered the city, devoted followers lay down their cloaks to honor him and cushion the ride, and waved palm branches to herald this most unlikely king.

I can imagine the pages of that trip tik turning, page after page, mile after mile, moving him along down that route, relentlessly, inexorably, to a destination he embraced and feared. It was a journey fueled by a love so wondrous it can scarcely be told.

Don't we love our annual reenactment of this day-our chance once a year to act like kids with the kids, to wave palms and sing "Hosanna" and let ourselves get swept up in the excitement of this procession? How happy we are to proclaim Jesus as King, to sense God's purpose soon to be fulfilled in joyous triumph. The Messiah has come and rules the day. We wave our palms in joy and praise. Let heaven and nature sing!

But even as we rejoice, our hearts are already breaking inside, aren't they, for we know that the King rides forth to die. We know the suffering he will endure. The betrayal. The humiliation. The pain. Unto death.

Yet, he rides forth, he rides forth knowing, deliberately turning over to that last page of this earth trip tick, choosing this route, knowing that it will take him where he would rather not go.

His choice is more awesome than our minds can ever fully comprehend. Who chooses death for love of another? Who sacrifices everything for a greater good? Who is so brave as to take on the full force of the powers of darkness so that we who follow might have abundant life?

What wondrous love is this. We wave our palms wildly, glad to be known as his devoted followers . . . but then it begins to dawn on us. If we are indeed following him, this is our path, too, isn't it? Our parallel journey through suffering and pain. These very palm branches are our visible confession of faith. We're going where he's going!

Maybe we'd rather not. And so, before we've gone too far, before we get too far into the pages of this holy bloodstained trip tik, we hasten to put down our palms now, sadly, nervously. We feel the prick of their sharply pointed tips, the razor-sharpness of their edges. We see that carrying them has made us visible and vulnerable. We understand that mostly there is no going back. These palms cut to the quick.

Contrary to what many of us think, or want to think, or try to think . . . faith in Jesus Christ does not remove struggle and pain from this life. It does not answer all the questions. It does not insulate us from grief and sorrow. But faith in Jesus Christ opens the door to the way through, and beyond. Faith in Jesus Christ gives us the courage to cling to hope, even, or perhaps especially, when all evidence points to the contrary. Because Jesus takes this journey, from Galilee to Jerusalem, to Pilate's jail, to Golgotha and the cross, to the tomb sealed with a very large stone, because Jesus takes this journey and beyond, to life eternal in the power of God . . . because of this, we can take the journey, too. Through all the big and little deaths of this earthly life. With nothing more in our hands than what he had: peace and truth and love. This is what our palms represent.

That's why we keep picking them up again, year after year. Waving them madly. Gladly. Ferociously. Sometimes in joy and triumph. Sometimes in bold defiance of the power of darkness staring us in the face. For, as we shout Hosanna "Yes" to Jesus our King, so also with him we shout "No" to pain and suffering and death. We shout "No" to evil in every guise. We shout "No" to famine and violence. We shout "No" to whatever it is that threatens to undo us in this moment, in this life, in this world. Jesus' triumphal ride gives us the courage to go forward, too. Refusing to give in. Refusing to give up. Insisting that, no matter what, there is life and truth and power and beauty greater than what we can see or say.

It has been said that life can only be understood backwards; it must be lived forward. Of course now, looking back on Jesus' life and its meaning, we can understand this last journey, because we can look back at it and see where it was headed. Not just to suffering, but to triumph; not just to death, but to life beyond the grave. We can understand his life backwards.

But what of us, who are still living forward and can't see where the road is going? What of us, who strain and squint and peer into the future but can't quite make it out? What of us, who fear what may be lurking just around the next bend in the road? What of us, who sometimes doubt that we have the backbone to see this journey through?

There's so much we can't understand now, living forward as we do. We're like the wonderful disciple Thomas, who asked, when Jesus said, "You know the way where I am going," honest Thomas exclaimed-"Lord, we don't know where you're going! How can we know the way?" Jesus had perspective to be living backward at that moment, and he could understand. But Thomas, like all of us, was trying to live forward.

Those early Christians were called the People of the Way. And here we find ourselves today, out on the way with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, palms in hand. We're living forward, moving through our trip tik a page at a time. And these palms and all they represent will carry us through. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." I am the way. I'm on this road with you. My way will not detour you around the hard, hard places of this life, but it will take you through them, and on to the other side. And I'll be with you every step of the way.

And so we take our blessed palms home and stick them somewhere where they'll be to us a visible reminder of Christ's abiding presence with us on the Way during this most Holy Week to come. Palms of victory. Palms of hope. These palms mark the pages of our life's trip tik. Palms on every page, reminding us always of his presence and his power, as we live forward, up and down the hills of our days, through the valleys of our nights, over the mountaintops of our most precious moments, into the heart of darkness, and right on through to the other side. Knowing that our Savior has gone this way before, filled with the determination and conviction and courage to insist that suffering and death do not have not have the final word. Till at last we meet him again in final victory and rejoice in the glory of everlasting life. For finally, this road from Galilee to Jerusalem leads straight to our hearts.

Hosanna to the One who comes in the name of the Lord.