Palm Sunday 2010

Palm Sunday 2010. We knew what to expect. The congregation, mostly dressed in white, met at the chapel behind the hospital. After a short opening service, palms were passed out. Incense was lit. All of the deacons were dressed in white robes, with candles lit on long candlesticks. The cross led the way out of the chapel area, through the main gate of the hospital and into the street. The deacons spread out across the street, and the congregation followed by the choir and priest, proceeded down the street in front of the hospital, turned the corner and went down a long block, singing ‘All Glory, Laud and Honor to Thee, Redeemer King!’
This year was a little different, though. There were people on one side of the street with sledge hammers, manually tearing down a building. The congregation on the left side had to move into the street to walk around a pile of rubble. A couple of the members of the congregation met us at the entrance gate to the church. They were on crutches and couldn’t walk the three blocks. And, instead of processing into the church building, we walked past the badly damaged tower and past the tent village onto the basketball court where church is being held. But all work stopped, and traffic pulled off the road to let us pass, and all the pomp and ceremony and reverence of the beginning of Holy Week was present. And Haitians are very, very good at pomp and ceremony.
At our home church in Austin, the youth make crosses out of palm fronds, and pass them out to the congregation after the service on Palm Sunday, to remind us that the week starts with joy and enthusiasm, and turns into an angry crowd and the crucifixion. Today, several members quietly wove crosses and made necklaces from their fronds. During the passing of the peace, I admired one lady’s cross, and she took it off and gave it to me. So I quickly made a University Presbyterian Church style cross and gave it back to her. Even without a lot of language skills, friends can be made.
May your Easter season be filled with grace and joy.