Sunday of Songs, Sunday of Sorrows
“Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.’”
The versatile contemporary German artist Kai Althoff works in many modes and mediums. His colorful depiction of the Triumphal Entry depicts Jesus surrounded by a colorful mess of humanity; a joyful chaos of all sorts heralding his arrival. Interestingly, he seems to be surrounded by more the normal folk: yes, we see a priest and a monk and an acolyte around him, but also a tall man in a top hat, and a woman in an evening gown. The haloed figures — saints? His disciples? — are looking on from a distance, bewildered and bemused. Jesus, meanwhile, makes his way through this riot of color and geometry, toward a somber, gray horizon…
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
— The Apostle Paul (Phil 2:8)
Palm Sunday
Texts for Today
Prayer
Almighty and everlasting God, in your tender love for us you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon himself our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and come to share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Ride on, King Jesus!
As with many of the spirituals that emerged from the Black experience of American slavery, the origins of Ride on, King Jesus are obscure, and the song seems almost infinitely adaptable to appropriation and adaptation. Indeed, one of the earliest version of the hymns included in the 1867 Slave Songs of the United States doesn’t include the famous chorus for which the song is titled at all: the repeated line and title of the song is instead “No man can hinder me.”
This song may seem discordant with Palm/Passion Sunday as we celebrate it, as the painful and ironic hinge between the height of Jesus’s power and influence in his worldly ministry, and his mounting up of the Cross only a few short days later. Indeed, this particular spiritual is only incidentally and secondarily about the Triumphal Entry as we remember and celebrate as we enter into Holy Week: it’s actual subject is the second glorious and triumphal coming of our Lord, but in focusing on “that great gettin’ up morning,” it also harkens back to the triumphal entry — as well to the testimony of the believer, who is empowered to endure hardship and despair by the hope of faith (hence the ambiguity between “no man can hinder thee” — which is obviously so much more theologically correct than the original “no man can hinder me” lyrics that it gives significant pause!)
The song almost has the character of mantra or incantation. If this vivacious performance by the Trinity Community Ensemble from “Eastern Canada” at the 2011 Teen Talent competition at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee whets your appetite to hear other interpretations of the song, a few interesting versions include this live version, recorded during worship at Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, MD, a “virtual choir” version from a Jamaican group, “Sounds of Adonai,” a worthy version from a Nazarene college choir, and an interesting performance by the CLC Youth Choir at a 1990 camp meeting in Ohio, if you want to see some Pentecostals cutting loose. Moses Hogan’s arrangement from 1999 has increased the visibility of the piece by providing a version palatable for performance and [traditional white] church choirs; if that might be too much sanitizing the tradition, it also enables some interesting outcomes, like this adaptation by an Indonesian college choir.
