If you go to the lectionary for today,
you’ll see that it’s schizophrenic – the name of this Sunday is listed as
“Palm/Passion Sunday” . . . that’s Palm and Passion, with a slash in between:
Palm-slash-Passion. Now, I suspect it’s like that for a very practical reason –
it’s the last Sunday in Lent, the last Sunday to contemplate what Christ did
for us, the suffering and the pain and the anguish. At the same time, it’s the
Sunday we traditionally celebrate the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, with all
its Palms and cloaks and screaming crowds, all the people singing and screaming
out “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” and “Hosanna in the
highest heaven.” But in a lot of churches, they don’t have Maundy Thursday
services like we do, or Good Friday services, and this is the only time they
have to read the passion narratives, the story of the betrayal and death and
burial of the Lord. Of course, some skip over the passion entirely, and go from
jubilation to jubilation, from triumphal entry to triumphal resurrection, and
pay little heed to the heartache in between.
But of course, here in Greenhills, we
wouldn’t do that . . . we have a Good Friday service, and so we have the luxury
of celebrating the triumph today. And we
did – the choir paced in and you all did a fine job of waving those palm leaves
. . . and we sang “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” and I thought it was stirring. But
the fact is, the joy is short-lived . . . it’s merely a lull in the storm.
We’re at an in-between time, a high place before we start down-hill. We’re on
the cusp, at a time between Jesus’ ministry on earth, and the final act of his
life . . . and unlike the people crowding the city that day, unlike the cheering,
stomping crowds, we know what comes next, and for us the celebration is colored
by sadness, it’s tinged with melancholy. We know that the wild joy of this
moment will soon be overshadowed by almost unimaginable sacrifice and suffering
. . . it’s only five days away.
The gospel writers knew this too . . .
they knew what comes next – after all, they were writing decades after the
crucifixion – and the way they wrote the story reflected this. But it also reflected their individual
concerns as well. Each one colored their
telling of the tale to reflect his particular theological bent. Take Matthew, for instance: that most Jewish
of Gospel writers was concerned above all that we understand that Jesus was the
fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. So the
centerpiece of his story is the
riding on the donkey and a colt, both, at once, and it’s a detail no other
Gospel has. When he gets near Jerusalem, he sends a couple of disciples over to
a nearby village with really specific instructions – “immediately you will find
a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone
says anything to you, just say this: “The Lord needs them.’” And so far so good
– the disciples go and do as he commanded them, and Matthew makes sure we get
the point: He quotes Zechariah – “Tell the daughter of Zion” – that’s Jerusalem
– “Behold! Your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” And if
we look at this in our modern mind’s eye, we can’t help but chuckle at the
image – Jesus must have had pretty wide legs to ride them both, and of course,
Matthew knows that it’s silly, just like he knows that “on a donkey, on a colt
the foal of a donkey” is poetic repetition, the basis of Hebrew poetry . . .
but he was steeped in the rabbinic tradition, where every detail counts, and
his first-century readers were too, and they would have understood the
symbolism . . . Jesus was both the fulfillment of prophecy, and yet unexpected,
humble, like no other king they knew.
The other Gospel writers know nothing of
the two-steed theory . . . John is more concerned with the contrast between
what the disciples saw that day, and how the crowd praised him – John’s version
is the only one where there are actually palms
– and the way he ended up. And John—who
has a penchant for explaining things in excruciating detail—tells us how to
think about the events on that day: he
says “the disciples understood these things only after Jesus was
glorified.” And for John, Jesus’
“glorification” was what, for any other man, would be the ultimate humiliation:
his mean and lowly death, spiked to a tree to die the death of the most
dangerous criminals. And so John
echoes—in the way he tells the story—Paul’s formulation of the ultimate
reversal. God’s power resides precisely in what the world would call weakness. “For
the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,” he says
“but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
In Luke’s version, which we just read,
he doesn’t mention the coming storm . . . instead, he emphasizes the power of
Christ and his royal welcome. As he
draws near to the city, he sends two disciples with instructions about the
colt. Here he knows ahead of time where it will be tied, what will be asked them,
and what they should say in return.
Thus, like God’s own self, Jesus is prescient, he knows what is to
come. He has the power of foreknowledge.
And when he gets into town, the people
praise God “for all the deeds of power that they had seen” (v. 37). And though in other gospels—especially Mark
and John—following Jesus for his miracles is frowned upon, here in Luke, it’s a
continuation of the understanding that Jesus demonstrates preternatural power,
and has since before the beginning of his ministry. At the very beginning, as he comes out of
the wilderness, Luke says he is “filled with the Holy Spirit,” and he continues
to do deeds of power that mark him as both human and divine—God’s son—and he
imparts that power to his disciples. And
so those who welcome Jesus to Jerusalem because of his “deeds of power” respond
rightly to his ministry.
Other details emphasize his kingship . .
. the use of an animal not previously ridden—i.e., the colt—is several times associated in the Hebrew scriptures
with royal doings, and the spreading of the cloaks recalls the peoples’
greeting of King Jehu after his coronation.
But most direct association of Jesus’ entry with kingship comes in v.
38, with the quotation from Ps. 118:26:
“"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in
heaven, and glory in the highest heaven.”
And although all three of the other gospels quote this verse, only Luke
inserts the word “king:” blessed is the king
who comes in the name of the Lord.
And so Luke invite us to think about
just what it means to be king in the kingdom of God: because we know, just as
his readers did, just as did the folks in the congregation for whom he wrote
the Gospel, what will happen in not very many more days. We know—and have known—what the journey to
Jerusalem has led to, and as if to remind us of it, as if to insert just the
teensiest of shadows into this triumphal picture, those who are out to kill
Jesus make a guest appearance at the end.
Perhaps thinking that Jesus’ words are mighty close to blasphemy or—more
likely—worried that the rabble might rise up in revolt, rallying around a new
king, the Pharisees tell Jesus to make them stop. His reply speaks to not only the power and
inevitability of his acclimation, but manages to slyly insult the Pharisees as
well: “if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” Not only are the common folk who line the
road more on top of it than the Pharisees, but the stones are as well. The Pharisees truly are dumber than a box of rocks.
I might have said this before—a bad
memory does have it’s advantages,
after all—but I was talking with one of my sisters about movies or something,
and she opined that she was tired of this post-modern (or post-post modern, if
you like) obsession with irony. On the
big screen, in literature, on the stage … and I, being a fan of the Coen
brothers, and a smart-aleck, below the belt fighter and big brother, said
sweetly that she must not read scripture, because it’s full of irony. And—sibling relationships aside—it’s true,
and this is one whopping big example of it.
Here’s Jesus, welcomed into Jerusalem, welcomed into the seat of Judaic
power, welcomed with palms and cheers and all that jazz, and we know what’s
going to happen, we know about Golgotha and vinegar-on-a-stick, about the sword
in the side, and it’s watery flow. And
the power of this story resides in precisely that fact: we know. We know.
Unfortunately, over the years,
Christians have acted like we don’t . . . and it goes far beyond certain Christians’—and
politicians’—recent calls for holy war .
. . it goes all the way back to the beginning, with Constantine, his
legitimization of the church, and the church’s
legitimization, in turn, of the Roman Empire.
It goes back to the Holy Roman Emperor, the warrior Popes, and the Siege
of Jerusalem, wherein Christians massacred some 30,000 Muslims and Jews. It goes from the Spanish Inquisition to the
conflict in Northern Ireland, from the Spanish Inquisition to the calls for
bloody revenge upon Muslims, all in the name of God.
Christian triumphalism is alive and
well, and not just in the pompadours and chandeliers of TV preachers . . . it’s
embedded in the way we do business, the way we practice church. Every pastor knows that preaching humble,
going-to-the-cross, following Jesus too
much will not a megachurch grow. We want
to be reminded how special we are, how God has blessed us, we want the clean,
happy, triumphal version of the faith.
But here at the culmination of Lent, as
we hurtle on into Holy Week, we are reminded of the true nature of our faith,
of the paradox and terrible irony at its heart.
The monarch who was crucified, the weakness that is strength, the King
who is humbled. At Lent—and especially
here on Palm Sunday—we can feel the full weight of our faith, and as we travel
this week toward the cross, during the week we call “Holy,” let us keep that in
our hearts and minds. What does it mean
to be King and yet crucified, to be weak and yet strong, to be foolish and yet
wise? In other words, this Holy Week let
us ponder and pray and cogitate about this paradox, thus irony that is the true heart of our faith … let us think upon what
it means to be Christian. Amen.
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