Palm Sunday

I pruned the rose bush last week.

My inexperienced hands snipped carefully.

I waited too long, maybe,

its branches would not begin anew.

Careless ponderings under the sun as

thorny twigs scattered around my feet.

I imagine

the plant was rejoiced at the work.

Heaviness lifted after winter's frost.

Less energy would be spent in maintaining its weight.

The yoke, easier.

The burden, lighter

as the dead avenues were cut off.

Revelation in the Sunday sermon.

Undisguised, simple truth of an ironic chapter.

A donkey foal trodden down ancient and foreseen road.

Carrying paradox within the Man on its back.

Soon to hold the sin of the world,

the Servant-King, the righteousness of God.

"Hosanna!" they proclaimed in false assumption

of a deliverance of circumstance.

Bitter sorrow, as celebration preceded the final act

that would crown the Passion.

Oh, that He would have been greeted in honest praise.

Might His suffering have been lessened?

The garden not tainted with dripping blood?

The forceful execution of the Lamb be less barbaric?

That the forsaken Son not felt the Father's wrath as He died?

He heard their selfish praises.

He saw their filthy robes.

As the foal shifted its weight

with each burdened step,

shuffling through the symbolic

greenery that covered the road to Calvary.

As He entered the Holy week,

He held the cup purposefully.

Circumstance is distracting.

The necessary pruning is an unnecessary focus.

That I would stand on the side in humility,

placing a palm before His feet and proclaim,

"Hosanna in the highest!"

not in response to life's circumstance,

but for sin's debt paid.

The thorn drew blood,

I quickly dropped the branch

back to where it lay previously before me.

A sharp blunt of pain penetrated the skin.

Pruning is indeed painful,

the scars will remind me.

But fruit will come.

He did see me that day alongside the wearied road.

Sin clearly covered and tainted this heart.

Yet, he journeyed onward

to the cross.