God in Christ,
You came into holy week that Palm Sunday riding a humble donkey, with the foolishness of the gospel on full display. For Caesar had his warhorses and armies, and Jesus had his donkey and disciples. Yet in this humble man the crowds saw a king; they waved their branches singing their hosannas: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” All the while religious leaders begged these disciples to stop.
What do disciples see that those in power cannot?
What keeps disciples singing joyfully in the face of empire?
God in Christ, help us to see and help us to sing — in our own age of profound spiritual blindness within the callousness of empire.
Help us to see those who others refuse to see:
the poor, the immigrant, the lonely, the sick,
the people who don’t vote like us, or look like us, or love like us.
For these are Christ’s people too.
Help us to sing for joy even when it’s hard to sing: may we sing in unity, sing in harmony, sing in the name of the One who loves us so.
Songs of joy. Songs of lament. Songs of justice. Songs of protest. Songs of hope. Songs of healing.
For if we do not sing—even the rocks will cry out.
God in Christ, help us to see and to sing the One who comes in the name of the Lord, praying as he taught us, saying:
Our Father,
Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.