" . . . a little child shall lead them all. Then enemies shall learn to love, all creatures find their true accord; the hope of peace shall be fulfilled, for all the earth shall know the Lord." (Hymn #729 - O Day of Peace)

The Lord Jesus is that little child and at his birth the angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace." Again today from Luke's gospel, we hear that same song of peace, shouted now by the multitude of his disciples as the grown man enters Jerusalem, traveling down from the Mount of Olives into the city from the east. "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" they cry. "Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven."

On this day, which we celebrate as Palm Sunday, the throngs of disciples rejoice at his triumph. They lay their cloaks down to cushion his way, as they would for a king, and they wave their palm branches in royal exuberance, shouting, "Hosanna, hosanna! Blessed is the king who comes!" We love this day and its excitement. We look forward every year to this return of our King and our opportunity to wave our palms and shout for joy! Hosanna! Hosanna!

Oddly though, Jesus himself, according to Luke, doesn't seem to be joining in our fun, does he? At first, he seems focused on little details and the instructions to two of his disciples, micro-managing we might say . . . the colt, never-ridden, borrowed, needed. Can't you just imagine those disciples whispering among themselves, wishing he would just relax, chill, and enjoy their big day, this triumphant entry into the city. But then, as the city comes into his view, he is even farther from rejoicing. Jesus weeps, as he did only one other time in Scripture, when he sees the grave of his friend, Lazarus. And he admonishes his rejoicing disciples, saying, "If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes."

On this triumphal day, the Prince of Peace weeps, and grieves that we disciples do not recognize the things that make for peace.

I sense that if Jesus were again entering Jerusalem this year, as he surely is, he would again weep bitter tears of anguish and grief. I want to thank Ann Wagner for doing such a beautiful job of finding the photo reproduced on the cover of our Order of Worship today. It enables us to add something, of a reality check to our romanticized reenactments of this day-Jerusalem, seen from the east, from the top of the Mount of Olives, much like Jesus would have seen it that day. Jerusalem, whose very name means "foundation of peace." As he rode along, he remembers the words of Psalm 122: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: 'May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.' For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say: Peace be within you."

But there was no peace in Jerusalem, then as now. The tension in the city that day would have seemed very much like the tensions there today, then between the Jewish people and the Roman occupying forces, now between the Palestinians and the Israeli authorities.

As I've mentioned here before, I regularly receive e-mails, contemporary epistles, from our United Methodist missionary in Jerusalem, the Rev. Sandra Olewine. I want to quote now from one of her most recent letters, written after spending a night in Bethlehem, caught there overnight by the heaving shelling.

All day long . . . the text from Luke kept coming back to me: "As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, 'If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!' " Over the last few weeks we have seen the hardening of hearts on both sides, acts of brutal disregard for civilian populations, and an increased number of children being killed and permanently injured.

I have no doubt that Jesus would again weep over this beloved city. He would weep with all the parents who are mourning the death of their children. He would weep for the blindness towards justice, which is a key element for true peace. He would weep for the blatant destruction of the earth as thousands of acres of farmland, orchards and groves have been plowed under. He would weep for all those who are already refugees and being made homeless again. He would weep for the cries from the powerful to end the violence while ignoring their own violence.

There are signs of hope which are beginning to break forth, as individual Palestinians and Israelis begin to work on ways to move out of the cycles of violence in which we're caught. But, the forces against these faithful people are great and the current danger extreme. Please join us in prayers and actions which create ways in which people on various sides can 'see the things which make for peace' and dedicate our lives to bringing them into reality. Longing for the day when our mourning is turned into joy, Sandy.

May we keep Sandy in our prayers, and all those who are working for peace in the holy city, Jerusalem. And during this most Holy Week ahead, may we pray that we ourselves be drawn deeper into lives of discipleship, eager to be as obedient as the two disciples who, that day so long ago, found it within themselves to go into a strange village and borrow a young colt, saying simply, "The Lord needs it." The Lord needs our obedience, now, our willingness to act boldly as his agents of peace in a time when acceptable levels of violence continue to rise. On TV, in movies, in our schools, in our cities, among nations, guns fire and swords rattle and the rhetoric escalates and it has become all too OK to keep weapons in our homes and hatred in our hearts.

Surely, Jesus weeps this day, and chides us again to discern the things that make for peace. And he observes that if we are silent or silenced, the stones would shout out. In Holy Scripture, stones are frequently witness to the word of God and faithfulness to God's covenant. The prophet Habakkuk warned, "Because you have plundered many nations . . . because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth, to cities and all who live in them . . . the very stones will cry out from the wall and the plaster will respond from the woodwork."

The witness of the stones connects us to the whole web of God's creation, to nature, to what we arrogantly call inanimate objects. The testifying stones bind us to our covenant with and hold us accountable by the measure of God's justice and righteousness. And thus, we are bound to one another, and to the very least of our sisters and brothers, and to all those Jesus loved so dearly: the poor, the hungry, and all those who weep.

This is the good news, which even the stones comprehend and are prepared to proclaim. This is the good news, which is ours to receive and to live. This is the high calling into which we are called to move. In Christ Jesus, we are called to him who is the living stone, in the words of I Peter, rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight. That, like living stones, we might ourselves be built into a spiritual house, becoming God's own people, a people formed to sing the praises of God who has called us out of darkness into marvelous light.

This day, our Savior, the Prince of Peace, enters Jerusalem. The city, according to Scripture, where God dwells, where all go to worship, where all nations shall gather, where Jesus will die, but where the disciples will tarry and the church will be born. Jesus enters Jerusalem to make peace with the offering of his own life. We now enter into Holy Week, called to offer our lives, in our place and time, seeking peace as living stones who, with him, form God's people of faithfulness and praise.

Let us pray now this prayer used by pilgrims in the Holy Land:

"For all who came before us, and for all who gave from their hearts, who gave their lives that there might be a better world, a safer world, a kinder world, we pray for peace, in their name. . . . And for the children, that the children may live, that they may have children of their own and that it will go on-we pray for peace in their name. That they would have a world worth being born into, a future worth dreaming about . . . that they might have change . . . we pray for peace, in their name. And in this time, when we hold it all in our hands, for all those who came before us, for all those who would follow, and for all those who share life with us on this tiny, fragile, miraculous globe, we pray that we-we who do have voices, we who could speak out, we who could make a difference, we pray that we may prove worthy of this great, great trust that we now hold in our care. Amen."

© Patricia E. Farris, 2001. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.