Sunday is Palm Sunday. Many who knew that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead hurried to celebrate His entry into Jerusalem. The palm branches they waved signified deliverance from military conquest and occupation. “Hosanna!” they shouted, meaning, “Save (deliver) us now!”
Jesus chose a donkey’s colt, not a stallion, on which to ride into Jerusalem. His deliberate choice symbolized a humble mission of peace, a deliverance surpassing their comprehension, and remaining misunderstood, even by his bewildered disciples, until the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Others remained bewildered still.
Courage. Resilience. Patriotism. Love of Homeland. Those are genuine qualities of noble character, applauded in President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and in the citizens of his savaged, war-torn country. We admire the Ukrainian people and accept responsibility to pray fervently for them, and to support them genuinely. We grieve with them in their unspeakable suffering, so hard to watch.
But I strain, without benefit, to hear expressed avowals of faith, of trust, of dependence and reverence, and of petition and reliance….on God. On either Ukraine’s part, or on NATO’s. I wish I could say that I am surprised. But I am not. Is anyone at all calling on God?! Is anyone at all listening for God’s Voice?! Has a Nihilistic humanity dismissed any effective, discernable “Idea of the Holy,” to use Rudolf Otto’s classic term? Is faith in God now obsolete?
If war comes to our homeland, will it be different for us? What, or whom, will we depend upon? How might we gain the victory? Will our faith make a difference at all? Will we call on God? Will we listen for God’s Voice?
Bible and hymnbook are our pivotal Christian resources. Worship and obedience are our straight paths. Prayer, praise, and gratitude are our means. God is our Refuge and Hope. God is not dead. But we must question soberly, do our actions, and does our lack of effective-enough actions, in the face of Putin’s blackmail of America and NATO, expose an absence of trust in God our Deliverer? NATO’s refusal to stop the barrage of bombs which Zelenskyy has begged, repeatedly, for us to do, smells strongly like cowardice and selfish lack of compassion (good, old, brotherly love), to me. Our refusal honors neither God, nor our suffering brothers and sisters, I assert.
At the end of World War II, when Mama and Daddy and I moved from Bladenboro to Lumberton, and then in just two months to Kinston at Christmastime of 1945, I was a first-grader who would remember for a lifetime Miss Hobgood, my Harvey Elementary School principal there. Miss Hobgood had us children singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Fairest Lord Jesus,” twice a week, every week, September through May, all five-and-a-half years I was in her school. Significantly, God had delivered the world from the murderous tyranny of Hitler’s brutal war, just months earlier. Americans knew that. We believed and trusted that our merciful God had fought for us. We sang about it. We sang “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and belted out loudly the Marines’ stirring, fight song! Miss Hobgood knew well that we children had much to thank God for, and much to sing about, to God’s eternal glory.
Will there be cause to sing when this war passes? For Ukraine? For America?
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Here was the deep core of Christian faith which our churches preached and taught in the 1940’s, and we repeated in our school. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. I would myself teach that sacred theology someday, and Miss Hobgood had given me a legacy of reverent hymnody, true and devout.
Reading, writing, and arithmetic were indispensable skills taught and learned, but Miss Hobgood added and taught devout trust, through “Fairest Lord Jesus.”
Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,
O Thou of God and man the Son;
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.
Praise God for that teaching!
President Zelenskyy just now spoke to the UN Security Council: “The power of peace must become dominant,” he said. Horrific atrocities are being committed in Ukraine, we can see. Lies abound. Putin is a merciless enemy of peace. Jesus chose a symbol of peace, not war, in choosing the colt and not the warrior’s stallion, for entry into Jerusalem, and peace is the meaning of Palm Sunday.
Let us observe Palm Sunday, and enter Holy Week, with earnest prayers for peace.
Thanks be to God.
Elizabeth Barnes is a native of Bladen County and now lives at White Lake. She taught Christian theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. She is a member of Beard’s Chapel Baptist Church.
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