Meek and mild

by Janet Greenland

Blessed are the meek. for they shall inherit the earth.

Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.

So says St Matthew.

How very different from our own troubled times.

Christ did not enter Jerusalem in battle order, and so was certainly a great disappointment to many of his followers. His crucifixion at the end of the week will have seemed to them the logical result of this unwarlike entry, but of course they did not know then of the Resurrection that was to follow.

For me the message of Christ’s ‘triumphal’ entry into Jerusalem is his manner of doing it, his meekness, and his lack of self-aggrandisement. No indication here of imposing his rule by force. Perhaps while we are still in Lent we should be thinking of giving up our own self-importance and our love of status, rather than our love of chocolate and the odd glass of wine.

G K Chesterton may well have been surrounded by wars and rumours of war when he wrote this poem. I find it an appropriate prayer on Palm Sunday, as we struggle to understand the violence in these days, and work out our response.

O God of earth and altar,

bow down and hear our cry,

our earthly rulers falter,

our people drift and die;

the walls of gold entomb us,

the swords of scorn divide,

take not thy thunder from us,

but take away our pride