Dissonance.

Dissonance is defined as: a clashing or unresolved musical chord…or, two things that are discordant, inconsistent, or disagree. This day…is a Day of Dissonance.

I think the image many of us have of Palm Sunday is: a parade. Jesus rides in on a donkey. In church history, this is called the “triumphant entry.”

Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Jesus hits Jerusalem amidst waving palms and wavering expectations of many who want Jesus for their “side.” Maybe it looked like the picture on the cover of your bulletin. It’s a kind of parade.

When I think of a parade, because I grew up in Seattle, I automatically think of SeaFair— a long summer night, and the honking of those goofy horns, bands, baton throwers, floats. I think of the great anticipation, as kids…of what will come next.

When I think of a parade, I think of a movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off…on Ferris’ skip day from school, how he ends up in downtown Chicago and spontaneously takes over a dull, boring parade until people are dancing, clapping, celebrating…all of downtown, construction workers, CEO’s, everybody, ends up doing the Twist and Shout (I’m not going to demonstrate)!

That’s Palm Sunday, kids waving palm branches, Jesus is coming!!

But there’s dissonance here…there’s an unresolved chord, something doesn’t belong.

There’s a dark side to this Palm Sunday parade…a very dark side. If we get giddy with the adrenaline of the Palm parade, and then skip right to Easter morning…we miss everything, really. Everything. Because by Friday, oh, there’s still a parade, but a different kind of parade. It’s a parade of people, filing past the cross. Only now the faces have turned from laughing and smiling, to snarling and vicious. The horns and cotton candy are replaced by shouting and spitting. The suits of clowns and marching bands become a bloody crown of thorns. Now the parade, instead of welcoming Jesus into the city moves past the front of the Cross, all sorts of people are passing by the cross. Their voices ring through the centuries:

“Away with him! Crucify him!

He saved others; let him save himself IF he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!

IF you are the King of the Jews save yourself!

Aha! you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross!

He saved others, he cannot save himself.

Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.”

That final parade swirls and envelopes the two criminals hanging not far from Jesus on their own crosses. Dissonance.

“Jesus, if you are Messiah, save yourself and us! (long pause)

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom!

Dissonance.

Here is a poem called Two:

Two.
There are always two.
Two roads to choose from,
two sides to every story,
two masters to serve.
Two.

Two men, criminals yet men
who hang like scarecrows on either side.
Two voices slowly emerge through the red mist
and dull, dark pain that covers His mind.

The Right: snarls, snaps, lashes out,
desperate for some way to escape,
“Damn them all.”

The Left: bears the guilt in quiet,
but no less pain, also desperate but only
“Remember me.”

Two.

There are always two.
Two lives.
Two stories.
Two roads.

Always we must choose

One.

Dissonance.

And so you, and me.

We are called to stare evil in the face…in the mirror. We are called to choose to see ourselves as: Judas, as the Relig Leaders, as Peter, the Crowd, the Soldiers, the Criminal who mocked Jesus. And also as the Other who said “Jesus remember me…”

We are asked to stare at the horror of the cross…to see a Jesus who died for both the Pain and the Sin of the world. Dissonance.

We must choose.

• Will we stay at the downtown parade, full of laughter and life?
• Will we move right from the palms to Easter morning?

We dare not.

It is in the dissonance between Palm Sunday and Good Friday that we must find ourselves. That we must understand. That we must walk…so that God can find us.

Then, in the midst of it all, if we can just sit with it…we will begin to hear in the dissonance a strong and clear melody.