Palm Sunday: The King Rides into Town

Firstly, I offer my apologies for this post being later than intended due to our internet connection messing us about for a couple of days.  Never mind it appears to be sorted out now - Thanks Lord.

Palm Sunday, for me, turned out to be a mixture of emotions:  I set off in the car to pick up one of the older members of our congregation, a little earlier than usual in order that we could get to the church before the Palm Sunday Procession arrived, with it due to set off from Sherwood House at 09.30am.  As I entered Devonshire Square I became aware of a lady lying motionless on the ground, close to the pedestrian crossing.  I slowed right down in case I needed to offer help and saw that there were some other members of our church watching over the lady and a police officer crouched by her side.  In view of the help that was already at hand I carried on to pick up my elderly gentleman, praying for the well being of the lady as I went.

The procession approaches led by the symbolic donkey

I picked up the gentleman in question and we drove up to the church, where the police were also present at the end of the drive, in order to safely marshal the procession across the traffic lights when they arrived.  We parked up in the car park, got out of the car and waited for the arrival of the procession.  A wait of about 10 mins. and here they came.  They were being led by the symbolic donkey with the church servers, choir, clergy and congregation following behind with their palm fronds and waving colourful flags in celebration.  As can be seen from the photographs, the Lord blessed the procession with glorious early morning sunshine and I certainly got a warm feeling about the whole thing.  As can be seen in the photograph, some of our younger church members were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the donkey!  As the donkey got closer, I took another photograph with my mobile phone, and you can see here the donkey, with its keeper alongside and John our Church Warden.

The procession stopped at the church gates for a moment of prayer and then they moved off singing "We have a King who rides a donkey" to the old sea shanty tune of "What shall we do with a drunken sailor".  We took up our flags and followed on, waving them as we went along our way around the outside of the church and through the churchyard before entering the church and taking to our pews for a wonderful service of celebration.  During the service, it was revealed that the lady I had seen earlier, laid on the ground near the crossing, was, in fact, Carol, one of our congregation and the lady responsible for the beautiful floral displays in our church.  Before the end of the service we were updated on Carol's situation by John, the church warden, who had been down to the local hospital casualty department to see how she was.  It was believed that she had tripped and most probably broken her arm, but this was awaiting confirmation.

The service was followed with the usual coffee and biscuits in the Magdalene Centre (church hall), and some welcome fellowship with sisters and brothers in Christ, before taking the elderly gentleman back home and me returning home for dinner.  On reflection, I thought how wonderful it had been to see the church out in the sunshine, celebrating the Lord's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, but even more than this:  How wonderful it was that Carol had been attended in her hour of need by fellow members of her church and within minutes of arriving in casualty by ambulance, was visited by someone from that same church who later passed the information on to the rest of the church in order that we might all keep her in our prayers.  In the words of one of my favourite hymns, OH LORD "HOW GREAT THOU ART"!!