The Incomplete Journey

I started to write this last Sunday, inspired (yet again) by Malcolm Guite's own poem and reflection for Palm Sunday in "The Word in the Wilderness" focusing on "the inner Jerusalem." But I have been unable to finish and post it over the past few days because, as is often the case, I have been far too busy in a way that belies the description of this week as "Holy." But now I get a chance to look at it, it seems an appropriate piece to post on Holy Saturday with its sense of incompleteness.

The pilgrim songs have long faded away,

The palm leaves and discarded cloaks,

Have been swept to the verges of the road,

Whilst the borrowed Jenny and her colt,

Have long been returned to the village

From whence they came.

But have the gates of the city been opened

To warmly receive the blessed one?

Or are they barred by indifference,

Having seen this scene so many times?

Or by antipathy, knowing the upset

that he will bring?

O for that shining new Jerusalem, where

the gates are wide open night and day!

But there's no short-cut to that promised place,

Without welcoming the one who comes,

In His name, into the seething city of

the human heart;

No bridal procession through the streets,

Of that radically re-developed city,

Without cleansing the temple and confronting

The arbiters of faith and political power;

Or the stumbling return route, without

The city wall.

Betrayed, deserted, denied, rejected,

Only after this journey has been completed,

Including the unseen descent to the places

Of shadow, and torment and despair,

Can the palm leaves be picked up again

And ‘Hosanna’ be sung in earnest.

Selah