...The whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. It's a day that begins the most important week of the church's year. We'll all wave our branches, welcoming Jesus. We're supposed to shout hosanna - or at least sing hosanna - and not be afraid of being heard.

On that first Palm Sunday in Jerusalem, the crowd was anything but silent. The shouted their songs and welcomed Jesus with a celebration that echoed through the streets. The Pharisees, wishing that the crowd wouldn't make such a racket, begged Jesus to stop them. And Jesus simply replied that if the crowd were silent, the very stones would shout out.

Imagine.

When I was a very little girl, hearing this text, I took Jesus at his word: in my mind's eye I saw stones with lips, singing their praises. As I got a little older, and a little more skeptical and a little less imaginative, I wondered what Jesus meant. Surely stones couldn't sing. So what was Jesus' point?

Now, when I hear these verses read, my heart is comforted with the affirmation that there is much more to life, to faith, to God, than just us. And that's what I think Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees. God is so much bigger than we are. Human efforts and strivings matter, yes. But they're not at the center of the universe, though we're sometimes inclined to think that they are.

If we know that the stones will sing when we are silent, should we be any less eager to raise our own voices? Hardly. The point's not that we shouldn't sing, but that we don't have to carry the song alone. If we want to be at the center of everything, then knowing that the stones will pick up where we leave off probably isn't much comfort. But this is part of the gospel's good news to us: we don't need to carry the song, only to join it. We don't have to sing well enough to make it perfect; after all, it's not resting only on our shoulders. This is a time when we get to sing of God's work, and worry a little less about our own.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven, an glory in the highest heaven.