What must it have been like for Jesus coming into Jerusalem that day? Knowing this was the last time he would enter this city, where holiness and violence, yearning for God and insistence on human power mingled so potently? “Bittersweet” is too mild to convey the feelings that must have jostled within him. In other passages, we learn that he wept over Jerusalem with its legacy of conflict. Was he also weeping for his own coming loss?
He did not remain long in the city after his triumphal entry:
Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
What a poignant phrase, “already late.” It was late in the day. Also late in the game for the cheering crowds to turn his way; the events that would lead to his suffering and death were already in motion. And while I think God’s gift of free will means that Judas could have refused to betray him, Pilate refuse to condemn him, even his persecutors stop and choose another way to deal with the threat he represented – it was unlikely that this story could turn out another way.
Especially not if we bear in mind that Jesus’ chief adversary was not the people around him, but the personified force of evil choking the life out of this world and its creatures. That fight had to be fought, and this was the way Jesus would take on that enemy and his ultimate weapon, death.
So Jesus did not linger in Jerusalem that evening, but returned with his inner circle of disciples to Bethany, the town where Lazarus, Martha and Mary lived. Was that the night Mary anointed his feet with a whole jar of expensive perfume? Was that the night Judas made the decision to betray him? It was one of Jesus’ last nights on earth in human form, with those whom he had come to love. I hope it was a night among friends, with good food, and laughter enough to push the dread and anxiety to the corners of his mind. Time enough to return to Jerusalem in the daylight and engage his final battle.
It is “already late” for us as well, as Lent draws to a close and we prepare to enter the drama of Holy Week on Sunday. Maybe we too should rest – take some time for family and ordinary chores, get together with friends, prepare for our walk to the cross with Jesus by not thinking too hard.*
I hope you will do some resting and preparing – and then take seriously the offers of Holy Week to fully experience this story with your community of faith. Yes, no doubt you’ve heard this story before. But it manages to reveal new gifts to us each year. As late as it may be, God’s love is never too late to overwhelm us. That is my Holy Week prayer for you.
*Instead of taking my own advice, I will participate in the March for our Lives on Saturday – not exactly a contemplative endeavor, but a powerful way to confront the scourge of gun violence taking some 96 American lives each day; I will be walking with Jesus and his many sisters and brothers on the streets of DC, prayer in action.
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