Anticipation

Homily for Palm Sunday

Anticipation. Those readers of a certain age will remember a popular TV commercial for Heinz ketchup that featured a tipped bottle made of glass, of course, and the contents pouring out with agonizing slowness onto a juicy hamburger, with Carly Simon’s pop hit “Anticipation” playing in the background. If you’ve ever used a glass ketchup or mustard bottle, you can easily relate to the frustration of waiting for the contents to ooze out of the opening, as you pound the bottom of the bottle with your palm.

Shortly after the time of that commercial, someone thought of packaging condiments in plastic squeeze bottles and the era of ketchup anticipation was over. But I can’t help but wonder whether our burgers taste just a little less flavorful now that we have instant gratification for our seasoning needs.

Picnics and barbecues aside, I think that anticipation is one of the most under-utilized gifts we possess in the Christian spiritual life. When we anticipate an outcome — whether that outcome is expected or not — we create a narrative context for our experience that helps shape our mind and heart. That shaping profoundly impacts how we notice the events and encounters around us and ultimately helps determine which messages or people we are receptive to and which we reject.

Anticipation lies at the heart of the brief Gospel reading before the entrance procession at Mass this weekend. That text is all about how Jesus orchestrated his entry into the city of David to create a sense of anticipation that something monumental was unfolding among the people.

I sometimes wish the account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was the only Gospel we read at this Mass. But we pair this brief Gospel passage with the much longer account of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, which is read during the Liturgy of the Word.

This undoubtedly allows more people to hear the Passion account read in church, since many are not able to attend a Good Friday service where we read the Passion from John’s Gospel. This is especially important because each of the four Gospels were written to prepare the reader for the Passion narrative. However, I think we lose a sense of the anticipation that Jesus was trying to build among his disciples.

When he sends them to secure a donkey for his entry, Jesus deliberately invites them to recall the words of the prophets when they predicted the way in which a new Davidic king would arrive to reclaim Jerusalem (cf. Mt 21:5, Is 62:11, Zec 9:9). With all the people waving palms and singing the words of Psalm 118: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (26), how could Jesus’ disciples not be anticipating a time of greatness and joy to follow?

This anticipation is seemingly well-founded, for after entering the city, Jesus zealously overturns the money changers’ tables in the temple and reclaims that sacred space for the Lord (Mt 21:12-13).

This moment of glory to the desolation of the cross, while brief in time, represents an intense journey of hopes raised and then dashed; of people at their best and then at their worst; of a God who feels so present and then so aloof; and of lives whose courses seem to be so clearly charted and then so completely set adrift.

What are you anticipating in your life these days? What do you expect to receive from your efforts, your relationships, your circumstances?

None of us has a crystal ball, but the anticipations are important. Take some time in prayer to share your anticipations with the Lord. Ask for the humility to accept that what you anticipate may not match what God desires, or that what you dread may ultimately be life-giving in the long run.

As they were waving their palms, Jesus’ disciples could not have fully known about the days to come, but we can posit that they were chasing after a finer day.