Palm Sunday - In the Midst of this Earthquake

Matthew 26

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? There’s different kinds, you know. There’s the sharp jolt kind, that feels like something hit the house. The first time I felt one those, it was over before I even realized what happened, and I thought, “oh! Well, okay then,” and I carried on with my day. There’s another kind, which is fairly short and rumbly, and feels like a heavy truck rolled right by the living room window. You might hear some glasses in the cupboard tinkling against each other, or dishes rattling. Those ones are often long enough for you to notice that they’re happening, but just as you notice, then they’re gone. Both of these kinds of earthquakes are alarming, but they’re usually over pretty quickly.

The scariest kind of earthquake is the one that starts slowly, like you’re standing on a swaying floor, and then builds up and sways more and more, and goes on and on. I was in one of those once where I actually heard the earthquake come rolling down the street towards our house. It wasn’t enough time to get ready, but it was enough time to get scared. Those slow rolling ones are the worst. You can’t tell when they’re going to end, and you can’t tell how bad they’re going to get before they do. You just run and hide under the table, and hang on for dear life, and pray.

The Gospel of Matthew mentions earthquakes a couple of times. It’s the only Gospel that does, actually. In our reading for today, the Gospel says that at the moment Jesus breathed his last, the earth shook and the rocks were split. 

We can imagine what that must have been like for the disciples. Remember, with the exception of some of the women, none of them were at Jesus’ crucifixion that morning. They had fled only the night before. Perhaps they were hiding out in the houses of their friends. Maybe they were hunkered down in an alley in Jerusalem, hoping that the Roman soldiers wouldn’t find them. Maybe some of them started back to Galilee the moment Jesus was arrested, risking being out on the open road at night. Wherever they were, as the evening of Jesus’ arrest became the morning, they would have experienced an increasing fear that his death was coming. Their world began shaking and falling apart the moment Jesus was arrested, and so when the earthquake at Jesus’ death rocked Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, they would have been terrified. Nobody knew how this was going to end, whether there would be more earthquakes to come or whether this earthquake would be big enough to destroy everything. They didn’t know whether the Roman soldiers would find them where they were hiding, whether they, too, would die. The week that had started with the triumphal procession in Jerusalem, with what was actually a protest rally against the Roman Empire, ended with each of them fleeing, with Peter separated from his beloved Jesus, with Jesus himself isolated and awaiting death. They were in hiding and the earthquake was coming.

Is it too cliched, too trite, to say, I know how they felt? Because we do. This year, this week, we do. We know the feeling of being in hiding, in isolation, of being separated from those we love. We know the fear of being exposed, of being “found” by this virus, we know the fear of losing family and friends, we are coming to know the fear of our loved ones dying alone because going to be with them means risking ourselves and others whom we love. 

And, even though we live in the prairies, we now know the fear of being in an earthquake, as this slow-at-the-beginning virus picks up in intensity and speed. It has hit the world like a rolling earthquake, and as we hang on for dear life and pray, we don’t know when it will end, or how much damage will be done when it does. As this Holy Week progresses from Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, we identify even more closely with the journey of the disciples than perhaps ever before.

But there is one key difference between us and them. One absolutely critical difference that we cannot overlook.

We know how their story ends. We know that their earthquake stops, and that when it does, the cross is empty, and so is the tomb. We know that their fear ends in rejoicing with the risen Christ. We know that their hiding behind locked doors ends with them being found by Jesus himself, the Lord of life. We know that their week ends in Easter.

Now normally, pastors don’t like to rush from Palm Sunday to Easter. It’s important to take the time in the middle for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, to lament and grieve and understand our part in Jesus’ death. But I think this year that we are lamenting and grieving and understanding our part in the death of others enough. And to survive through our earthquake, to have hope even, we need the reminder that Easter is coming. In fact, Easter has already come. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

And so, just as the disciples’ story ends in Easter, we can put our hope in the promise that our story will end that way, too. The resurrection on Easter, the new life promised to all, the defeat of the power of death, this is the way all stories end. No matter how bad it gets in the middle, we always end with Easter. We do not know how long this earthquake will last, although we know it will get worse. We do not know how long we will be separated from those we love. We do not know which of our loved ones will die, and which of the structures that we thought would stand forever will fall. But we do know that the earthquake will not last forever, we know that separation is not forever, we know that even death is not forever. The disciples’ story, and ours, ends in the resurrection of the One who was betrayed, isolated, and died. It ends in the risen Christ. And so, even this week, and especially this week, as we take shelter and as we pray, we know that God hears us, and so we say, Thanks be to God. Amen.