This season always carries a strange feeling. We find ourselves somewhere between winter and spring: between memory and hope, between death and new life. The earth is beginning to change, but not fully. The air still carries a chill. The ground is still hard in places. And yet, beneath the surface, something is stirring. Something is already beginning. Life is rising, even now.

This in-between season has long captured the imagination of poets and writers. One of them was T. S. Eliot, who wrote: “April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land…” Why would spring be cruel? Because life begins to break through what seemed dead. Because what was buried can no longer remain hidden. Because new life asks something of us.

Perhaps that is where we find ourselves today. We may not be living in exactly the same circumstances as when those words were written, but we are still living in uncertain times. We hear of wars that spread fear and destruction. We see cities reduced to rubble, families displaced, and children growing up surrounded by fear.

We witness hatred that runs deep in our world, conflicts that remind us how fragile peace can be, and how quickly violence can spread. Fear still comes to us from many directions, not always in the same way, but just as persistently.

We wonder what the future will bring. We wonder how long this tension will last. And in moments like this, we may find ourselves saying: This is the cruelest season. Because something is being uncovered, truths we have long ignored. Something beneath the surface is being revealed, the brokenness in our world and in ourselves. And something in us and in our world is being called to change.

And it is into a moment like this that Jesus enters Jerusalem. Not quietly. Not accidentally. But deliberately. He stages a procession. People wave branches and shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” At first glance, it looks like a celebration, a joyful parade, a moment of excitement and hope. But this is more than a parade. It is a protest. A counter-procession. Because at the same time, there is another procession entering the city.

From the west comes Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, riding with soldiers, displaying power, control, and domination. Two processions. Two kingdoms. Jesus comes from the east, riding a donkey, surrounded by ordinary people — peasants, the poor, the overlooked. Pilate comes from the west, with horses, armor, and military might. One proclaims the kingdom of God. The other proclaims the power of empire. One embodies humility and peace. The other enforces control through fear and violence.

And the people must choose. Which procession will they follow? Which kingdom do they belong to?

This is not only their question. It is ours as well. Even yesterday, massive crowds poured into the streets across the US and beyond to defend democracy and say no to injustice reminding us that choosing a procession is not only symbolic. it is a real and urgent decision. They were asking the same essential questions in a different key: When power is used to silence and to dominate, which side do you stand on?

Because every day, we are choosing which procession we walk in. In the words we speak. In how we treat one another. In how we respond to fear. Will we follow the way of power, that promises security through control? Or will we follow the way of Christ, that invites us into humility, vulnerability, and love? The way of empire is loud and visible. It rides on strength and certainty. The way of Christ is quieter. It looks fragile. It can even seem foolish. And yet it is this way that leads to life.

What might it mean to step out of the empire’s procession this week? Perhaps it looks like choosing a conversation of reconciliation over a cutting word. Perhaps it means standing with someone who is overlooked when it would be easier to look away. Perhaps it means letting go of the certainty that we are right and others are wrong, and opening our hands instead of our fists. The way of Christ rarely makes headlines. But it changes people in ways the world cannot.

Now, the disciples who walked with Jesus that day could not see where this road was leading. And we must be honest: this procession does not bypass pain. It goes straight through it. By the end of the week, the same crowd that shouts “Hosanna” will grow quiet. The city that welcomed Jesus will turn against him. And the One who rode in on a donkey will be handed over, tried, and crucified. Jesus knows where this road leads. He rides on anyway.

This is not a day to skip to Easter. The darkness ahead is real. The cross is coming. The resurrection only means something because the cross was real. But the disciples could not see this at the time. Just as it feels impossible to imagine flowers growing out of frozen ground, they could not imagine resurrection out of death.

Before anyone saw it, before Mary reached the tomb, before the stone was rolled away, resurrection had already begun. Quietly. Mysteriously. Unseen. Resurrection is not only something that happens after death. It is what God is already doing now. That is how God works.

And perhaps that is what we are being invited to trust today. Even when we cannot see it, life is already rising. Even when the world feels heavy with fear and uncertainty, God is already at work. Life is rising. And so we do not despair. Because our hope is not in power. Not in certainty. Not in control. Our hope is in the God who brings life out of death. The God who chooses the donkey over the war horse. The God who stands not with destruction, but with the vulnerable. The God who does not move through hatred, but through love.

What looked powerless in Jesus was, in truth, the deepest power of all. The donkey was stronger than the empire’s horses. God’s way is stronger than the human way. “Hosanna” means “save us.” It is a cry that comes from pain, from longing, from deep need. And it is still our cry today. Save us from fear, from destruction, from all that keeps us from life. And God answers, not with force, but with presence. Not with domination, but with love.

Jesus would say to his disciples, after all that was coming, after the cross and the tomb and the dawn of the third day: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” We who stand on this side of Easter know what the disciples did not yet know. And we hold that promise today as we enter this holiest of weeks.

God is with us. Even now, and especially now. And beneath the surface of this season, this uncertain, in-between time, something is already growing. Life is rising, even now.

Thanks be to God. Amen.