Palm Sunday begins with a collision of meanings.
For Jewish pilgrims, palms were not decoration. They were memory.
The Apostle Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is…” — and then he names what look like attributes, but are really evidence. Evidence that Christ is alive in us.
In these verses the prophet Hosea tells us that Israel has become prosperous and has drifted away from their faith, their hearts are false, and now bad things will happen.
Yes, I like to use fancy words. I usually find myself not having the right ones when I need them, but in this case I do…
Drinking the Rain
The vineyard has been with us all week—soil, tending, expectation. Hebrews shifts the focus slightly. Now it is not only vines, but ground. Earth that drinks.
The vineyard has carried us all week—Isaiah’s love song, Jeremiah’s lament, tenants who forgot whose soil they stood on. Now Jesus shifts the image inward.
“I planted you as a choice vine, wholly of pure seed.
How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?”
Before Jesus tells of violent tenants, Isaiah sings. A love song.
Finally, he sent his son.
“This is the heir,” the tenants said. “Come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.”
The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like a mustard seed (Mark 4:30–32).