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Christopher Armstrong, The Dean of Blackburn, reflects upon Palm Sunday.

The Christian Church stands at the threshold of the most significant week in the year for Christians: the week that leads to the Crucifixion of Jesus, his burial and his resurrection.

In most churches Sunday morning will be marked by a procession around the church with palm branches as we remember Jesus' entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey with the complete confidence and support of the crowds.

You can find the account in all four gospels though St. Mark characteristically has the shortest account (Chapter 11, verses 1 - 11).

Embroider this with a real 21st century donkey, a town band, a choir and you have a powerful statement recalling that moment in Jesus' life recorded by the early church.

It's an exciting moment for any local church - and a brave one too! - for not many have the bottle to take their procession outdoors for fear of the weather or cynical rebuke from onlookers.

It's at moments like these that the Church still has the bottle to put its head above the parapet.

The Archdeacon has just illustrated certain global and national issues highlighted by Church leaders.

The Church does not necessarily have the answers.

There are well paid and rescourced government officials who can give us the answers: it is the right sort of question that must be asked!

So here we find Jesus causing quite a stir and in doing so asks a few questions of the population of Jerusalem at the time.

Strangely, it is just the sort of question that Dr. Williams asked in his Sharia Law lecture last month: which authority does reign over us?

Is it secular law or does religious law point us all to a higher authority?

As Jesus entered Jerusalem the crowd cheered him on. He must have felt like a successful politician or a pop star at that moment.

However, such moments in the sun do not last - for Jesus, for politicians or for pop stars.

That same cheering crowd was baying for his blood a few days later.

Rather than a hero on a donkey they shouted for a convicted criminal to be released.

Such is the fickleness of humankind. It is a very human reaction and I can feel it in myself so often.

My discipleship ebbs and flows; sometimes I do not know what to believe.

I am weary of waving palm-leaves or orchestrating the palm waving of others. Sometimes I just let go and rely upon the current of the crowd, incapable of doing more.

On such occasions, when ones faith or spiritual energy is at low ebb, it is ones friends, colleagues or those nearest and dearest who buoy us up. Some would even go so far as to call this support the power of prayer. I certainly would.

For Jesus, Palm Sunday marks a high point in the week. From here it goes from bad to worse, spiralling downwards towards the trial the scourging and the crucifixion. There aren't many who accompany him on that terrifying journey - mainly women.

For me, there's much to do between Palm Sunday and the champagne on Easter morning (after the 5 am Dawn Mass - have you got that?!).

This is the climax of Holy Week. I pray that I have sufficient capacity to be fed by it.

8:00am Saturday 15th March 2008

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