The Anticipatory Grief of Jesus - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Matthew 21:1-11 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.”  This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
    humble, and mounted on a donkey,
        and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

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This sermon was preach by me, Pastor Sarah Locke in a specific context for a specific people, but I think it can speak in different times to different folks as well. You can read the sermon below, or listen to it at this link.

You can also watch the worship video below:

Let us pray. 

God of mercy and consolation, you have felt our every grief and desperation in your own son Jesus Christ. Let us take comfort in his presence and in your saving power on this day and always. Amen. 

This is an odd time to be a campus chaplain. Along with almost every other profession and vocation, we are having to adapt to a new normal and I’m figuring out what ministry looks like when I can’t be present with any of my students. So every week we gather together for Food for Thought… over video conferencing. 

This past week we were checking in with one another and one of our students mentioned having a hard time planning anything. She said, “it feels like the worst is still yet to come and it’s hard to believe there is anything that will be worth planning after this. I think I have forgotten how to hope.” 

We’ve had a lot of plans cancelled and a lot of our normal life upended in the past several weeks and I’ve felt similar to this student in the past week. How do we continue to live our lives and plan for the future when things feel so immediate and dangerous and futile? I started to do some reading about this feeling of hopelessness. It turns out that a LOT of people are feeling this way. And this odd discomfort about the future is actually a form of grief. 

David Kessler, an expert on grief, describes what we are feeling as two different kinds of grief. We are feeling regular grief— the grief of things lost, people dying, normal live changing, and plans being cancelled. But we are also feeling another kind of grief called anticipatory grief.

When I hear this story about Jesus on Palm Sunday, that is what comes to mind— grief. We know this story well. We hear a version of it every year on Palm Sunday. So it might not make complete sense that I find grief in this story. After all, it seems like one of the few times Jesus is celebrated for who he is— the Lord and Savior of God’s people. 

But Jesus has been on this journey from the very beginning. He knows that it will only end one way. So I can only imagine that he has some really complicated feelings as he gave these instructions to his disciples and rode into the city among the crowd shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

On the one hand, I am sure that he feels a certain amount of pride and happiness in being among his people, in being welcomed into the city by crowds who are calling out to him. 

But what these people are shouting is “Hosanna” which means, “Help us now!” They were shouting to God for assistance in their plight, their oppression under the Roman Empire. They were asking for a political revolution, not a spiritual one. Jesus knew this and knew that that is not what he would offer them. 

So I can only imagine that Jesus also felt an immense amount of grief. Because with every step that colt took into the city, Jesus got closer and closer to what would seem like unbearable disappointment and abandonment to his friends, family, and followers. With every step, Jesus got further and further away from people’s expectations of the Messiah. As he made his way into the city, he got closer and closer to losing his dignity and insecurity. He got closer to the unknown and maybe even feelings of anger and fear and anxiety. And as he made his way into that city, he got closer and closer to death.

What grief Jesus must be feeling in the midst of this grand parade, not only for himself but for everyone around him. 

The grief expert I mentioned earlier, David Kessler, says that: 

“Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. 

“Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.”

In the same way that Jesus is walking into a future that is largely unknown to the entire world and one that will change everything forever, we are doing the same thing. 

I’ve heard so many people lamenting this week, saying that this is the first year that they can remember when they won’t be in the church for Holy Week. And we don’t know what to do. We are being faced with a big question mark in our lives right now. We don’t know what the next week will entail and there is a lot of stress and grief being held in our bodies right now. We, too, are walking through the city gates into the unknown of of a dangerous Jerusalem. 

Perhaps it is an odd thing to admit, but it does bring me a bit of comfort to imagine that Jesus experienced similar anxiety, fear, and grief as he made his way into the city. And yet he continued. He continued on his journey toward the cross because of his love for the people shouting to him, waving palm branches, and laying their cloaks on the ground for him. He continued because of his love for the people who had followed him for many years and provided for him, loved him, and did ministry with him. He continued knowing that love is often uncomfortable, unbearable, and undignified in the face of real crisis. He continued into Jerusalem and eventually to his death on a cross because he knew that that is the cost of love. He knew that is was the only way to save us all. 

So as we remember that day when he went into the city amid shouts of “Hosanna!” We too are shouting, or perhaps sighing in grief, the same sentiment: “Save us now, God.” And we continue into the unknown in grief, anxiety, and fear for the love of our neighbors, trusting in the knowledge that God has saved us in Christ Jesus, now and forever. Amen.