Palm fronds, provocative liturgy and, of course, prophetic preaching marked worship at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship & Music Conference, held at Montreat Conference Center. In all, about 1,400 people are participating.
The theme was meekness, which the conference preacher, Dr. Margaret Aymer, stressed is not weakness. “To clothe oneself with meekness or gentleness means to hold one’s power lightly, not using it to oppress or destroy,” she said, relying on John’s account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem as her preaching text.
Children were featured throughout the service, playing chimes, processing down the aisle of Anderson Auditorium and waving palm fronds, reading prayers and Scripture, and singing an anthem, “Festival Sanctus” by John Leavitt.
Meekness “affects how we treat others, how we walk through the world as followers of Jesus,” Aymer said. “Too often in our culture we have concluded a truly strong person is forceful, aggressive — even a bully. The cultural myth of the alpha male affects everything from middle school text messages to the rulers of nations, including our own.”
On the day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, the Roman governor Pilate was there as well, as were upwards of 300,000 pilgrims “suffering under the thumb of Roman oppression,” Aymer noted. Pilate made a show of force; accompanying him were no fewer than 1,000 soldiers, brought in to reinforce the Roman garrison.
“People in his day understood strength,” Aymer said. “Jesus enters Jerusalem by the Eastern Gate. He also comes in strength, but his strength is not accomplished by bluster, threat or cruelty. His strength comes cloaked in meekness and gentleness.” In the Chinese martial arts, competitors greet one another with a fist covered by the other hand, “a show of strength cloaked in meekness, gentleness and self-control,” according to Aymer.
“John tells us Jesus has something Pilate never could have,” Aymer said. While Pilate could kill, Jesus could bring people back to life, as he did to Lazarus.
As Jesus rides in, the people quote Psalm 126, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” They lay palm branches at his feet and cry out, “Hosanna!” which means, “Save us!”
“In this moment, the crowd recognized Jesus’ strength, and they hope for the toppling of Rome and the establishment of their own strong man, who will use his strength and brutal ways to help them,” Aymer said. But in this brief account in John, Jesus is silent. “His one action is to find a donkey and ride into Jerusalem,” she said. In this way he invokes Solomon and the prophet Zechariah, who wrote, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
“This is the promise of a ruler with meek and gentle power,” Aymer said, “a ruler who opens the way for peace.” Jesus is “a man so certain of his own power that he can be gentle.”
However, “Jesus’ strength can be hard to accept when what you really want is vengeance,” she said. “That’s why Peter’s instinct is to cut off the ear of an already oppressed, enslaved man.”
“Jesus’ strength does not allow for brutality,” Aymer said. “He heals even those who would capture him.” That can be “hard to accept when you’d much rather see the legions of heaven unleashed. It is to the cross that we as disciples are called to return, again and again, that we might learn the true strength of being clothed in meekness.”
“We are not called to be minions of any strong man,” Aymer said. “We are called to be disciples of Christ, to cry out our hosannas to the meek one who emptied himself and became obedient, even unto death on the cross.”
“Dear friends,” she urged, “let us clothe ourselves with meekness.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Monica Buonincontri, Vice President, Marketing & Commumications, The Board of Pensions
Donna Burkland, Apprentice, 1001 New Worshiping Communities, Interim Unified Agency
Let us pray:
Loving God, help us to love you with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to recall the story of the Good Samaritan and fill us with your Spirit so that we can go and do likewise. Amen.
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