204 The Power of a Parade

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “The Power of a Parade”, originally shared on April 4, 2022. It was the 204^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Have you ever seen a parade? Have you ever been in a parade? Have you ever seen a parade that started because people were so excited that they just had to cheer? Today, you will.

   I love a parade! Especially one with marching bands. They are why I started playing drums.

   I remember watching the Memorial Day Parade in my hometown, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I remember standing on the curb hearing the rumble of the percussion coming from a distance, my excitement building as it grew closer.

   I remember the thumps on my chest as the percussion section drew nearer, the staccato pulse of the snare drums, the splash of the cymbals and the massive thud of the big bass drums.

   I wanted that! I wanted to do that.

   I tapped out rhythms on every surface I found in front of me for years. I made my own drums out of empty cardboard boxes, Quaker Oats containers, whatever. I destroyed a child’s drum set my parents bought me for Christmas when I was in 5^th Grade to “Rock Around the Clock”.

   I played a violin for a year because our school system started its orchestra program a year before its band program, and I thought it would help me learn to read music. When I couldn’t play drums because I didn’t own a concert snare drum, I played mellophone (a French horn with trumpet valves) for a summer until my dad talked with the band director, who sold him a surplus used drum from the high school band.

   I started practicing on a practice pad and played that snare drum, moving immediately into first chair and staying there for four years. I still have it.

   I became the guy who played the drums, marching down the street in the parade.

   When I chipped my left wrist vaulting over a “horse” in gym class, I wore a groove into the cast and played in the parade anyway.

   I saved up and bought a Ludwig “Super Classic” drum set with the silver sparkle finish, just like Joe Morello’s, the drummer with The Dave Brubeck quartet.

   I took it to college and played in jazz bands through college and seminary and beyond.

   It all started with a parade.

   Parades bring people together, whether they are in the parade or watching it. They create a sense of focus and a common experience, even a common cause.

   I was standing on San Dimas Avenue the other day, the parade route for the Western Days parade held in San Dimas for many years. One in which the church I served entered many floats. It took a right on Bonita Avenue, through Downtown San Dimas, ending at the hardware store.

   We also had floats in the Independence Day Parade in La Verne. It went past Bonita High School, turned west on Bonita Avenue, past Old Town La Verne, then looped back around. We had floats in this parade for many years, too.

   Jesus entered Jerusalem, once, at the head of a parade. He would be dead in a few days, but for that shining moment, he brought people together, at least some of the people anyway. He knew he would die there, but he rode into town like a champ.

   Here’s what happened, in Luke 19:28-38,

²⁸ After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

²⁹ When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, ³⁰ saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹ If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” ³² So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. ³³ As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” ³⁴ They said, “The Lord needs it.” ³⁵ Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. ³⁶ As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. ³⁷ As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, ³⁸ saying,

“Blessed is the king
    who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
    and glory in the highest heaven!”

   I don’t know that there were any bands in that parade, but I imagine small children watching, running along with it on the sides. Caught up in the excitement, finding branches to throw in his donkey’s path. Asking their parents if they could throw their outer clothing onto the path for Jesus’s donkey, like some of the adults were doing, and hearing a firm, “No”.

   I imagine that it was exciting, but that it was also kind of scary. Who were these people? Crowds can become mobs, and mobs and go out of control, they can get destructive.

   But here he came, Jesus. The Messiah? The one they had been awaiting for 1,000 years? A deliverer, but from what? The Roman empire’s army of occupation (they threw the palm branches that traditionally greeted successful military leaders)? Something else?

   Was the excitement contagious, or did many look on with horror, or indifference?

   How did Jesus feel, riding into Jerusalem like that? What did he think about the cheers of the crowds?

   We’re still talking about “the slap heard ‘round the world” at the Oscars, and that was 8 days ago, an eternity in our 24-hour news cycle. There are layers and layers of nuance there that I don’t want to, or believe that I should, get into. It was almost universally condemned by those who have a greater right to make such judgements than I.

   I want to focus for a minute on the words spoken by Denzel Washington to Will Smith moments after he attacked Chris Rock onstage. He reportedly said, “At your highest moment, be careful, that's when the devil comes for you.”

   I wonder if Jesus felt a momentary urge to just end the chain of events that he knew was coming, right there. To just stop with the cheers and spend the rest of his life as a popular rabbi, a miracle worker.

   But he didn’t.

   Why did he ride into town on a donkey? Was it a conscious reference to the Old Testament prophecy, as we read in Zechariah 9:9?,

⁹ Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

   Or did Jesus choose to ride in, as some scholars have suggested, on a symbol of humble service? Because he resisted the temptation to take the easy way.

   He got that donkey when the disciples just went and untied it and, when the owners asked them to explain, they said “The Lord needs it”. And they said, “OK”! Either I’m missing something here, or it was another world back then.

   Did they know about Jesus? Was he that respected, that popular?

   The Bible says that a “multitude” of his disciples began to loudly praise God. Right there. In broad daylight. In public.

   It’s easy to follow Jesus when he’s there at the head of the parade. Top of the charts.

   It’s harder when he’s headed to the top of the cross.

   That’s where Jesus was headed, and do you know how many of the “multitude” followed him all the way?

   Zero. The power of that parade, the one we celebrate as “Palm Sunday”, was very temporary. Jesus knew that.

   His humble service would change everything. But that’s a story for next week, a week of love and shame. Holy Week.