Palm Sunday and a Cross

Palm Sunday begins Passion Week, which includes The Last Supper, Jesus’ Garden of Gethsemane experience, his crucifixion and his victory on Resurrection Sunday, or Easter.

Sources say Passion Week is so important that three of the gospel writers – Matthew, Mark and Luke – devote a full third of their contents to reporting this week, and the fourth gospel writer, John, dedicates the entire last half of his book to “the week.”

Jerusalem reportedly claimed a population of about 50,000 at the time of Jesus triumphal entry, but many had come to celebrate the Jewish Passover, and Jerusalem bulged with perhaps 150,000 people on Palm Sunday.

Here’s the paraphrased Palm Sunday story (Matthew 21:1-11, 14-17):

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them
right away.”

This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey’” (Zechariah 9:9).

The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees (John 12:13 tells us they “Took branches of palm trees”) and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest!”

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”

The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.

“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.

“Yes,” replied Jesus. “Have you never read, 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?” And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

Jesus had true followers, but the general crowd turned on him when influenced by leaders fearful of losing Rome’s favor. Johnny Cash sang “Jesus was a Carpenter,” which contains these words: “It was on a storming Sunday when he (Jesus) rode to old Jerusalem / And the palms they cast before him / Were the crimes they laid against him.”

Writer Bill Petro says the throngs threw down garments on the pathway to cushion Jesus’ ride – an Oriental custom still observed on occasions – as well as palm fronds, the symbol of triumph and the national emblem of an independent Palestine. Jewish religious officials feared Jesus would cause the Romans to destroy the Temple and their nation. Petro says there had been a dozen uprisings in Palestine in the 100 years previous to Palm Sunday. Most of those revolts were subdued by Roman force.

John 1:11 records, “He (Jesus) came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.” The same crowds that were crying out “Hosanna” were crying out “crucify Him” five days later (Matthew 27:22-23).

I don’t want to be just a “Palm Sunday believer” – a person who’s happy to follow Jesus during good times but ready to disown the Lord when his popularity seems to fade and there are crosses to bear.

Ernest W. Blandly wrote the lyrics to “Where He Leads Me.” That old hymn contains these words: “I’ll go with Him through the waters…I’ll go with Him through the garden… I’ll go with Him to dark Calv’ry…(Refrain): Where He leads me I will follow / Where He leads me I will follow / Where He leads me I will follow / I’ll go with Him, with Him all the way.”

Beggar Images Seen through Glass

No one looking for a handout seemed to stand nearby as my wife and I viewed many of Rembrandt’s etchings of beggars.

Some time ago, Carol and I inspected some of the Dutch artist’s etchings at the N.C. Museum of Art in Raleigh. An etching is produced this way: a drawing is engraved on a metal plate; ink is applied to the plate: paper is pressed against the inked plate to produce an image on the paper.

Standing alongside a few Saturday afternoon museumgoers who appeared well fed, well-cared-for and even well-to-do, I scanned small images that were framed and under glass. They were drawn by Rembrandt between 1629 and 1654 and had become part of a modern-day traveling show called “Rembrandt Van Rijn: Sordid and Sacred, The Beggars in Rembrandt’s Etchings.”

The exhibit featured 35 small prints – one was only slightly larger than two inches by two inches – from the John Villarino Collection.

I doubt that many real beggars – maybe none – saw the traveling art show. Probably no one we would classify as a beggar visited the exhibition and laid weary eyes on Rembrandt’s images of alms seekers.

I doubt that anyone working at a rescue mission or social services office said to fellow workers, “The museum is showing artwork that features beggars. Maybe we ought to take some of our clients to see that show.”

No, I don’t think anyone thought about bussing beggars to review Rembrandt’s renderings.

Dutch society of Rembrandt’s day esteemed work, thrift and self-restraint and looked down on beggars. Artist Hieronymus Bosch, a Rembrandt predecessor and fellow Dutchman, painted beggars as almost indistinguishable from his depicted demons, says writer Gary Schwartz.

Rembrandt often drew and painted pictures of poor people. Critics say he usually portrayed beggars with “sanctity and individuality.” He often used images of beggars to portray Bible characters.

Dr. John I. Durham, in his book “The Biblical Rembrandt,” presents Rembrandt’s intrigue with Christian faith.

“His first artworks were on Biblical themes, as was his last painting,” Durham says. Of Rembrandt’s known work (285-290 paintings, 300 etchings and 1380 drawings), 40 percent involve Biblical themes.

Rembrandt made many depictions of the “return” scene from Jesus’ parable about a lost, or prodigal, son who asked for his inheritance, spent it foolishly and returned to his father’s embrace (Luke, 15).

Perhaps Rembrandt saw himself as a spiritual beggar drawn to the “there but for the grace of God go I” images of street people.

Schwartz suggests that Rembrandt’s humane image of the poor and disabled may have “contributed at some time or other in the course of history to the kinder treatment of real beggars.”

As a child, I heard the thirteenth century nursery rhyme “Hark, hark, the dogs do bark; the beggars are coming to town….” I listened to Bible stories about poor people and knew funds-challenged residents who lived in my rural South Carolina community.

The first street beggar I remember seeing was an African-American man who sat on a sidewalk and leaned against a building fronting the main street in the City of Greenville, S.C. That man wore black leather “holders” to cover what was left of legs amputated close to his bulky torso. I never heard him speak when someone dropped coins into a cigar box sitting in front of his stumps.

My grandparents sold “real cow’s milk and butter” to a few Greenville city folk on Saturday mornings, and I, as a child, often accompanied them. We would make our rounds to customers and then shop at Woolworth’s and other stores. I could hardly pass that main street beggar man without thinking of this line from a poem my childhood pastor, the Rev. James H. Thompson, often quoted: “I complained I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.”

As I stood in an art museum and viewed Rembrandt’s centuries-old images of beggars, I wondered how many of us prefer to see poverty artistically interpreted and viewed through glass – the glass of television screens.

I suppose art still helps us deal with life.