From years of giving over my spirit to the Spirit of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday, my impression of this great day is of the relative chaos. Jesus’ closest followers scramble to cover the donkey they have found as he directed them to do with the cloaks that their own hearts and imaginations cause them to do. And as they make their way into their Holy City for the holiest of days there is more scrambling to greet them. Now it is the crowds as they near and enter the city who are placing their own cloaks on the ground where Jesus will pass.
In the truly memorable movies that have sought to capture these moments in the life of Christ, these events are fairly well choreographed for effect. But when you think about it, what is happening now and what will unfold in the days to come will be anything but calm, smoothly organized, or pleasingly synchronized.
Jesus knew how easily the conviction and adulation of this day would be swamped by the power of earthly concerns. Jesus knew that the mad scramble of cloaks on this day would become the louder and louder cries for this crucifxion. Jesus knew that even Peter, trying to speak for himself and perhaps even for the other disciples words of encouragement for the Master, would speak also those painful words: “I do not know him” not long after.
It was for the sake of these words and the weakness they reveal that he became a slave for us. He did not expect nor did he receive true recognition in this moment. He was not spoken to with words that had the power to endure. BUT, HE did speak such words. He DID suffer as his, as God’s response. Beyond the noisy chaos is the reassuring calm in which Jesus speaks to us, his cloak at the foot of the Cross for us.