For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall bust into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

This morning I told the Confirmation Class the same thing that I tell every Confirmation Class at this time of the year: no one understands Easter, no one can explain Easter.

And, of course, by that I mean that the reality of the Resurrection is not something that can be broken down and analyzed by science nor by poetry, and certainly not by preaching, for whenever we try – and yes I will give it my best shot again next Sunday – but whenever we try we bump up against the fact that none of us have died and been resurrected and we can never fully know what we haven’t experienced.

That’s why we find Christmas so much more comfortable then Easter.

We’ve been born, we’ve seen birth, we get it.

But the best that we can do with Easter is point to little deaths that we have known – relationships, careers, dreams – and realize that God has brought good things have come out of the pains and disappointments and horrors – the little deaths - that we have known and we can say, “OK Easter is like that, but better!” which is true, but it barely skims the surface. And next week we’ll try to get beneath the surface of Easter

However, today is Palm Sunday and Palm Sunday is a far more understandable story, a story in which we can find ourselves pretty easily.

You see, Palm Sunday is a bunch of different stories, complementary and contradictory, stories that reflect the confusion that everyone seemed to be feeling that day, stories that if I were to put them to a modern soundtrack it would come from the music of noted Theologian from Doylestown, PA, Alecia Beth Moore, who is probably better known as Pink – I know I amaze you with the people I come up with, Goo-Goo Dolls for Christmas, Pink for Palm Sunday, who knows what next week will bring – just to be clear this is not Pink Floyd for you older people, but just plain old Pink.

In particular, the song from Ms. Pink that would be playing on Palm Sunday would be one from a few years ago entitled “Who Knew?”.

That’s the question that always occurs to me when I read through the Palm Sunday scriptures, “Who Knew”?

Start with the disciples, did they know?

They knew that things were changing around them. Two of them had been involved in a carefully planned out moment when Jesus sent them to get the colt, armed with the password, “The Lord has need of it” and bring it to Jesus to ride into the city. This had to confuse them, because this was the same Jesus who went out of his way for three years to avoid the crowds and the limelight and the confrontations and now he was clearly putting himself out there as the King who comes, not on a stallion of war, but on a colt of peace.

Who knew that Jesus would suddenly change his style?

And the Pharisees and the other Jewish leaders, did they know?

They knew that they lived with a fragile peace as long as they didn’t attract the attention of the Roman occupying army and they knew that the songs and shouts about a king coming to town would not go well when the Roman Governor Pilate heard about it. Yet Jesus who never showed much interest in things political was driving the religious leadership to a showdown that they didn’t want with the Romans . . . or with him.

Who knew that Jesus would suddenly alter the political landscape?

And the crowds of people, did they know?

I learned, long ago, that it is always inaccurate to speak with any confidence of crowds and their motivations. I went to college between the years 1968 and 1972, which means, for those of you who didn’t study Ancient American History, that I learned about crowds and motivations and the fact that there was never a single clear motive when students and faculties would gather to carry signs and sing songs and chant together, and I have always equated the Palm Sunday crowd with those. There were some true believers in those college crowds, who were opposed to war and segregation; and there were some folks looking for an excuse not to go to class; and there were some guys who went to check out the girls – or so I was told; and there were some who went to heckle; and some who went to just kill a little time until the next thing on the agenda; in fact the only common denominator was that we never protested in the cold, it was always in the Spring when we grabbed any chance to get outside.

And, so I suspect there was good weather on that first Palm Sunday and that there were true believers, and there were people who should have been at work, and there were people who went to see and be seen, and there were those who wanted to heckle, and others who wanted to see this troublemaker from Galillee for themselves.

Who knew that before the week was over Jesus would be arrested, tried, convicted and killed on a cross?

Who knew?

Only Jesus.

He was the calm point in the center of the storm, riding with an aggressive peacefulness, a dagger from God to the heart of stale religion and arrogant government.

And the people threw their robes on top of the colt so that Jesus could ride gently and more robes went on the ground before him, a red carpet entrance to the city and all the crowds cheered and sang until the Jewish leaders, in a panic, begged him to stop his followers and Jesus laughed and said “if that happens, the very rocks stones will sing out”.

That’s what happens when God’s people travel together, physically or spiritually, there is an unstoppable, irresistible joy. That’s what Isaiah was describing in the OT lesson today. He was telling the people of Israel, as they prepared to return home after generations lived in exile, he was telling them that they would travel in joy, this rag-tag group of unprotected refugee would be safe, they would be led in peace and they would see and hear the joy and beauty of the world around them in their journey.

That’s what happens when God’s people travel together.

We’ve known that, haven’t we?

As a congregation, throughout our history but especially the last few years, journeyed together, by faith alone, ignoring the wisdom of the world in matters of money and life and trusting God to lead us, to guide us, to sustain us. And we have done it with joy, in the midst of our deepest sorrows; we have done it with peace, in the midst of our chaotic disruptions we have done it with love, in the midst of our painful disappointments with each other and with ourselves.

We have been retracing the steps of Christ, providing a tranquility in the middle of the bedlam, laughter in the face of fears. Who knew that we would get this far together?

That’s what this week is about, for us and for all Christians.

We may regain our hope and our enthusiasm for life each December, but we regain our courage and our strength for life this week, because we realize today that we follow a leader who will conquer, for he has already conquered, all of the things that threaten us and fill us with fear.

And so we journey together, as the Man of La Mancha had it, willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause

These are difficult days for so many of us we are surrounded on the national and state levels by such dramatic and polarized extremes of policy and public opinion.

And I’m sure I never remember a time when all sides, Democrats, Republicans, unions, state leaders, all sides, exhibited such public contempt for each other, such an unwillingness to work together, such an unawareness of how they appear to the world, such a self-centered and ultimately self-destructive approach to solving the real and serious problems that are in front of us. I’m not bright enough to know what the right answers for health care are, I’m not bright enough to know how to undo decades of irresponsible leadership in the state.

But here’s what I am bright enough to know: they’re not doing it right.

None of them.

And so I’m not walking with any of them because none of them are going in the right direction, not the bully governor, not the bullies at the NJEA, not the White House, not the Congress, none of them are walking the right way and so I’m not traveling with any of them.

How do I know that?

Simple, where they are walking isn’t in the path of joy or peace, where they are walking they’re not going to find mountains and hills breaking into singing, where they are walking they’re not going to see the trees of the fields clapping, they’re not going to encounter that strange and wonderful man on his colt and on his cross and on his throne.

But we are as we walk together to the Holy City.

Step by step, day by day.

Together.

We’re laying down clothes for our king today, literally with all of the bags and boxes, but figuratively we are making his journey, his leadership easier.

Oh, and one more thing, let me get back to my buddy Ms. Pink for a moment when she wrote the song “Who knew?” it was, in part, a tribute to friends who had died. And it mixes the pain of loss with the realization that there are, with us today, those who will not be in too short a time and we better pay attention.

And all of us have had the experience of spending a last time with someone and not even knowing it as changes and currents of life sweep us away. And afterwards we say to each other “who knew?”.

Just as the crowds, all those differently motivated people who lined the streets of Jerusalem would say to each other, a week later, “who knew?”

But I always wonder what we would do differently if we knew?

And the answer I come to is always the same, if we can carry ourselves with joy and peace as we pass from day to day and person to person, then it doesn’t matter if we knew or not, it doesn’t matter what they do in Washington or Trenton, we will have been the presence of God in each day and each relationship.

You see, this is the week when La Mancha comes to Jerusalem and to Clover Hill, the week when we are called:
To dream ... the impossible dream ...
To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...
To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...
To run ... where the brave dare not go ...
To right ... the unrightable wrong ...
And at the end of the week, we find the dreams of Don Quixote were and are they realities of Jesus the Christ:
And the world will be better for this:
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach ... the unreachable star ...

Put the other stuff aside, at least for a week, and travel with Christ and each other on the road to the Holy City during this Holy Week.

For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall bust into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.