You may have seen the movie on TV recently, "The Man Who Would Be King" and adaptation of a story by Rudyard Kipling. It tells the story of two rogues who make an epic journey from British India through the Khyber Pass into an unknown country to set themselves up and become rich. They become gods and ultimately one becomes king of the country. In the end however, they lose everything. One of them loses his life.

Today we begin a series of liturgies that are very different from our usual Sunday Mass. We use the term Mass for just about every celebration that has an Eucharistic element. The liturgies of Holy week are not just Masses with bits added on to them. They are unique rituals that would not be complete without those special parts.

Today, for example, we hear in our Readings about two processions. The first is the procession of Jesus into Jerusalem riding a donkey. He is acclaimed as son of David, a king. The second is his procession out of Jerusalem to Calvary. Here he is also claimed to be King. He loses everything. But in this case he gains everything for us.

The Gospels were written to try to tell us the meaning of Jesus' death. Our liturgy today tells us that the what the crowds say about Jesus when he enters Jerusalem is in fact true. It is true in an unexpected way. Here was a kingship not of grandeur but of service its cost in humiliation.

To us, no less than to the people of Jerusalem who welcomed him to their city and who saw his death, the question remains, to whom do we give our allegiance? We sometimes think how fickle the crowd is. One day they welcome him the next they kill him. But we are challenged in the same way.

Pilate asks Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Instead of asking to whom do we give our allegiance, we are tempted to ask instead, To whom do you, Jesus, give allegiance? To the Jews, to the Catholics, to the Anglicans, to the Muslims? If not a king in the way we want, we are inclined to say, then you are not king at all. Away with you!

On the cross Jesus seems to question his Father's allegiance to him when he prays, "My God my God why have you forsaken me?" Yet, this psalm he uses is a prayer of love to the Father from one who has emptied himself becoming as we, are accepting death on this cross for our sake. It is indeed the ultimate abandonment and at the very same time his exaltation as Paul tells in his hymn. It is this love that is the meaning of his death. He was prepared to give everything out of love for the Father and the world into which he was sent.

Where do we put ourselves in the story of Jesus entering and leaving Jerusalem? This week we do not just recall a series of past events. We are participants in the mystery of God's love acting in our world. Who we are and where we stand is up to us.

Fr Graham