Palm Sunday

Today was my first foray into the world of live streaming. Isn’t strange how a negative thing like the coronavirus can suddenly broaden your horizons. As we read Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem 2000 years ago, we stretch back into history and envisage ourselves among the crowds, laying our garments before him, or as St. Andrew of Crete (writing in the 7th century) said in the Office of Readings, “we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees…but let us spread ourselves like coats before him….and give voice to that sacred chant ‘Hosanna’, as we wave the spiritual branches of our souls.” Then with our current technology we share what writers have given to us over the years, their experience of Christ, with each other way beyond the confines of a church building. It brings to life the fact that the Church is deep in years and wide in reach, yet all one people of God, all one body. I hope that that sense of unity, with those who have gone before, but especially those who are with us now, will continue after this crisis has ended. At the same time I feel that acknowledging this agelessness and timelessness of the Church gives us hope when we are mourning someone we have lost. Lost to us now, physically, but still spiritually a live part of the body of Christ, still part of us all.