One of the more vivid memories of my childhood is of a church service on Palm Sunday. Shiny dress shoes strapped on my feet, topped with lacy socks. Springy cotton sundress swishing around my knees as I skipped up and down the center aisle of the sanctuary waving a palm branch and trying my best not to smack into any of the other children in the exuberant procession. If I sit with the memory long enough, I  can still smell the thick blend of old wooden pews and heavy floral perfume; feel the squish of thick red carpet under my feet. 

Palm Sunday is notorious for its lively celebrations. Pastors who rent out donkeys from farms and parade them around the building. Children who, like me, enter with endearing and raucous reenactments of the Jerusalem streets some 2000 years ago. The “triumphant entry.” The last hurrah before we muddle our way through the sorrow of Holy Week. 

This year we are unable to gather amid children’s voices shouting and palm leaves, real or crafted from green construction paper. There is little to be triumphant about as death tolls climb and grief visits our families uninvited. But the unconventional parade is not all there is to notice in the story that forms Palm Sunday. 

In Luke’s gospel, he records that as Jesus proceeds down the road amid shouts of joy and cries for salvation, he stops and weeps over the city he is entering. The triumph we remember today does not require we somehow look away from present suffering to turn to joy, it is a triumphant entry that plods along slowly, on a donkey, and stops to weep along the way. 

While congregations have hustled to find ways to get palm branches into the hands of people to maintain some sense of normalcy, I wonder if instead we might be invited to stand next to Jesus and weep over our world that even now cannot see the things that make for peace. 

We cry “Lord save us!” while denying people access to the medical care they need, because they have preexisting conditions, or because they are disabled. Because they are poor or because they lack the proper documentation. 

And Jesus weeps.

We cry out “blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” while turning away from the undocumented farmworkers, risking their safety and health to keep food on our tables. 

And Jesus weeps. 

We cry out “Hosanna in the highest!” yet continue to make sure our safety and comfort and provision are attended to first, even at great cost to our neighbor.

And Jesus weeps. 

While the parade goes forth, and pandemics wage on, tribal lands are seized again because colonization knows no season and empires will push past every boundary.

And Jesus weeps. 

As the crowd presses closer, some are viewed with suspicion because of their Asian heritage. 

And Jesus weeps. 

We affectionately turn our eyes to Jesus on a donkey, grey and fuzzy and soft. We welcome the parade of singing children in lace-trimmed socks on squashy sanctuary carpet. But the song is correct when it declares that “love is not a victory march,” and our Savior indeed approaches, humble and riding on a donkey. And he is weeping. 

So may we weep.