Palm Sunday in Iraq

One of our church members is a military chaplain currently deployed in Iraq. His year-long tour is nearly half over which is giving his wife and children cause for rejoicing. Occasionally he emails sermons he's preached or his thoughts and impressions and I obtained his permission to post this one.

Today - as I write this email - it is Palm Sunday. This day begins what many consider the most important week in the year. The events commemorated this week by Western Christian traditions are the events which set us free from darkness and death and gave us both the hope and the promise of new life. This year, Eastern Orthodox Christians will celebrate the same events with the same meaning just one week later.

One traditional way to start the worship service on Palm Sunday is with a joyful procession, carrying palm branches and singing songs that praise and honor Jesus as God’s chosen king, the savior of the world. This same Sunday, however, is also known as Passion Sunday - the Sunday of the suffering of Christ. Instead of a sermon, the story of Jesus' arrest, trial, and crucifixion is read from the Bible – the whole story, without explanation or illustration or commentary.

Palm Sunday / Passion Sunday underlines the deceitfulness of surface appearances. Behind and within the cheering crowds who would have made Jesus the King of Judea were men plotting murder. Before the week was done, Jesus would be dead and sealed into a tomb. But that, too was a deceitful appearance, for in the Christian faith, we see the death of Jesus as no tragic defeat. It is the glorious victory of God's love over the power that wants to bind us forever in sin and death. On Easter Sunday, at the other end of this grim week, Christians will replace the sorrowful remembrance of Jesus’ suffering with the joyful shout of, "Alleluia! Christ is risen!"

For many of us Soldiers, this year of deployment is a very difficult time. Few of us have ever been so close to so much human suffering. There are cheering crowds waving signs that say, “Thank you, USA” and giving us the thumbs up. Yet the American and coalition soldiers, with the Iraqi Army and Police, must move carefully and maintain alertness always. Behind and within the crowds are evil people who will sacrifice the safety and lives of the innocent to push their oppressive ideology into power.

Still, in my heart is the promise of Easter. We are taking seemingly slow and painful steps toward the goal of a free and stable nation here, with effective laws and agencies to protect the dignity and value of each person. No matter how grim the situation appears on some days, we can see every day that we are making a difference in the character of a nation.

Men and women are learning how to use freedom without abusing it. A nation is learning how to give people power to serve the whole and to restrain that power to prevent abuse. Many thousands of men and women have joined the Iraqi Army and Police. They’ve accepted grave personal danger, showing they’re willing to pay the price to secure a new and different life for their brothers and sisters, and for their children. Out of the darkness of these times will arise a nation renewed and revitalized, and we will make the sacrifices and struggles of these times meaningful, for they will have been the price with which we and our brothers and sisters of Iraq purchased a new and different life.

Don't be deceived by appearances. What we do here is neither hopeless or fruitless. It is redemptive, and it is producing results. -Fr. Jonathan Landon