Lent VI – commonly known as Palm Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week. Rather remarkably, the BCP lectionary doesn’t prescribe an account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as the Gospel reading, but the collect is retained virtually unchanged for Common Worship, which does.
ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
With the events of the Easter triduum practically upon us, the plaintive tone of the last few weeks’ collects is slightly less prominent. Instead, the invocation immediately appeals to God’s redemptive work in sending his Son. This week, we pray with God’s tender love at the front of our minds.
If love was the origin of Christ’s mission, the collect highlights humility as one of its goals. The epistle allocated to Lent VI, Philippians 2:5-11, especially underlines this purpose. We are to have the same mindset as Jesus, whose incarnation and death, even death on a cross, serves as an example of humble service. Humility is at the heart of the so called ‘triumphal entry’, one of the main features of which is Jesus’ choice of a donkey’s colt to ride into Jerusalem in fulfilment of the prophecy of the humble king in Zechariah 9. It often resurfaces on Maundy Thursday through the use of John 13:1-17.
This humility, so characteristic of Jesus’ last week, is something we are meant to imitate. And if Lent has taught us one thing, it is that we have plenty to be humble about! But here, humility consists not simply in acknowledging and lamenting our sins. In the light of the redemption in Christ, humility takes the form of loving service.
The petition, however, asks for something far more ambitious than simply a renewal of humility. Rather, in it we ask for God’s grace to share in the realities we will remember in Holy Week. We are not merely spectators in the events the Gospel depicts for us. Nor do we simply remember them, at least not in the sense of merely calling them to mind. Instead, we seek to enter into Christ’s sufferings and share in his resurrection.
And ultimately, Lent teaches us that nothing less will do. As we explore and reflect on our sin, it eventually becomes apparent that it’s cure requires nothing less than for us to be taken to pieces and reassembled from scratch. We need a death and resurrection to restart and remake us.
It is the wonder of Holy Week to see our death and resurrection manifested in Christ, whose humble service, instigated by the Father’s love, brings it about.
Christ and Calendar 