I would not usually have been there but my wife reminded me about the flour and herbs we needed for next week and how with so many visitors, the merchants could easily sell out so even though it was a hot afternoon I went out taking my boy Johannes with me.He was six years old and eager to come on the errand, so we cut through the narrow alleyways. I was holding him tightly by the hand for there were crowds from all over come to celebrate the Passover. We headed for the shop on the corner of the main road where I knew the herbs would be fresh and of the finest quality, dodging the carts and the bundle carriers as we went. But when we reached the shop it was impossible to get in as it was surrounded by people who were surging out of the city, the road was completely full and we soon got swallowed up in it all, I can tell you. I caught up Johannes and he climbed on piggy back style, his arms clasped tightly around my neck as the crowd sucked us out with it onto the Bethany road. Outside the city gate it was marginally less of a crush and I could stand at the roadside able to breathe again. There was such excitement about and up ahead I could hear chanting. It was too far away for me to make it out but it seemed to be good natured, joyful and happy and coming toward us. Shortly we could see a small group coming down the hill in front of a crowd, they were all led by a man on a donkey. Now I could hear the chanting: “Hosanna”.
Well I still did not know what was going on and I tugged at the man next to me
“What’s happening?”
“It's the man from Galilee, see he is coming - the one who raised Lazarus,, they say that Lazarus might be with him but look - there is the one they call Jesus - on a donkey.”
“Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord : The king of Israel.”
The enthusiasm was so infectious, the donkey and the man came closer, and I do not know why but I felt an urge to join in; I lifted my arms above my head and asked Johannes to hold the ends of some palm branches so I could break them off - I had never done anything like this before but Johannes and I waved our fronds and we sang with the others “Hosanna ,Hosanna” and now the crowd around the gate moved out to meet the man and we continued to wave the palm branches in his honour and then as he got closer, we threw them on the ground to make a sort of carpet for the donkey to walk on as the strange procession went through the gate into the city. The people had thinned out a little bit now so I could put Johannes back on the road, hold him by hand as we followed the stream of people, the chanting now ahead of us as the crowd at the front grew with more and more people coming out of the sidestreets. It looked as though they were heading to the Temple.
“Daddy, who was that? Why are all these people here?”
To be truthful, I did not really know how to answer Johanes’ question - how do you speak to a small boy about Roman occupation, about the imprisonment of Palestine, which is his country but which he has only known this way. How to tell him of the freedom we crave and the hope that exploded with the coming of this miracle worker seated on a donkey riding into Jerusalem just as Zechararia had foretold?
"Johannes,” I said “ this is a special person, come from God, a really good man, and I am so glad that you have been here today and that you have seen him.”
You know I forgot all about the shopping, the flour, the herbs, I forgot everything in those Hosannas.”
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