Lenten Bible Blog, 6th Sunday of Lent (Palm Sunday) 
(Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Mark 11:1-11 or John 12:12-16) 

Ps 118 stems from someone worshiping at the temple. The white spaces between many verses (e.g., between vv. 20 and 21 or between vv. 25 and 26) indicate that one or another element of the liturgy has been preserved in this psalm.  For example, vv. 1-4 provide both liturgical instructions and a refrain. And there are references to movement into the temple, vv. 19-20 and 26-27.   
 
The Hebrew word in 118:1, which is translated as “steadfast love,” can also be translated “covenant loyalty,” (e.g., Deut 7:9). Read this way, the psalm participates in Israel’s covenantal traditions, which have been a hallmark in lections during this Lenten season.   

Christians have understood the psalm in creative ways. They construe “This is the day that the Lord has made” (v. 24) as a reference to Sunday, and even more to Easter. They view “the stone that the builders have rejected” (v. 22) as a reference to Jesus’ rejection (Mk 12:10). They claim that the statement “This is the Lord’s doing” (v, 23) refers to Jesus’ passion (Mk 12:11). A prayer for help, “Save us!” (v. 25), appears as “Hosanna!” in Mk 11:9. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord” (v. 26) is cited in Mk 11:9 as a reference to Jesus. In sum, Psalm 118 became an important way for expressing early Christian understandings of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. 
 
The alternate NT lections offer Marcan and Johannine accounts of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. They pick up on the idea of “a festal procession with branches” in our Psalm (v. 27). And they build on Old Testament royal traditions. Noteworthy is Jesus riding on a colt, which likely refers to a procession in which a king rides on “a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zech 9:9). This king is both “triumphant and victorious” and “humble,” qualities that early Christians attributed to Jesus. The procession also included spreading cloaks on the ground before a king, a practice attested in 2 Kgs 13. And the presence of leafy branches as a part of a victorious procession is present in 1 Macc 13:51. Moreover, the specific reference to palm branches, present only in John 12:13, is also part of such processions, so 2 Macc 10:7.   
 
These royal allusions were made specific when the crowd that gathered around Jesus spoke about “the coming kingdom of our ancestor David” (Mk 11:10) and said about him, “the King of Israel” (John 12:13). It is no wonder that the Romans viewed this procession as an act of sedition. Strikingly, “the disciples did not understand these things.” (John 12:16). The crowd clearly thought that Jesus was the anticipated king, whereas the disciples did not yet know the full significance of what was about to happen.

Before God began to create, there was water.  Later, that same primordial water returns in the form of a destructive flood.  After Noah, his family, and the animals survive the flood, God announces the creation of a covenant with that family, their descendants, and all animal life.  God promises to all such life and even the earth that there will never be another flood designed to destroy all life and the earth.  (Later apocalyptic writers will imagine a cataclysm fire.)   
 
Just as there is a “sign” of the covenant made between God and Abraham—circumcision (Gen 17:11)—so too the covenant with Noah involves a sign, “my bow in the clouds.”  This bow is almost certainly a rainbow, which Ezekiel knows as “the bow in a cloud on a rainy day” (Ezek 1:28)—a different sort of water.  The word “bow” is regularly used in the Old Testament to refer to a military implement (e.g., Zech 9:10).   Remarkably, the writer in Genesis has imagined the pacification of this weapon:   from battle bow into rainbow.  God has turned the strung bow into a diaphanous and multi-hued arc in the sky.   God has turned away from destruction to peace.  God the destroyer has become God the preserver.  Such is the purport of this first biblical covenant. 
                 
As one moves to the New Testament lections, water remains important.  These verses in Mark 1 recount the baptism of Jesus, an act now celebrated in the Christian sacrament of baptism.  Mark’s account is striking when compared with those of Matthew and Luke.   The latter gospels speak of the heaven(s) opening.  Mark, in contrast, reports that “he (Jesus) saw the heavens torn apart.”  The baptismal scene is no ordinary moment.  The sky is ripped open, recalling the moment hoped for in the book of Isaiah:  “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…” (Isa 64:1).   That time of cosmic disruption has now taken place with the baptism of Jesus.  The power of the baptismal waters has triggered this response in the heavens. 
 
The writer of 1 Peter reflects on the power of this baptismal water and relates it to the time of the flood.   He writes that “eight persons [Noah and his family] were rescued through water.”  The waters of the flood here become, in this Christian reflection on the flood story, a means of which salvation takes place. The author then moves to the practice of baptism, which he deems to have been “prefigured” by the salvation of those who survived the flood:  “Baptism is like that. It saves you now.” Just as Noah was “rescued through water” (CEB), Christians are saved by means of baptismal waters.  The primordial waters, which had once been a tool of destruction, have become a means of grace.