Delivered Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011
We live in unsettled times. I can’t believe how many crises are happening in the world these days. Japan has experienced a triple catastrophe – the earthquake, tsunami and damaged nuclear power plants leaking radiation and threatening meltdown. The nuclear danger continues for who knows how long. Many North African and Middle Eastern countries have experienced, or are experiencing, political revolutions and turmoil: Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan…. I can’t even keep track of all the countries in crisis. We are involved in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. There are tornadoes and floods. On top of that, we have the economic problems in the American and world economies. It has ripple effects on school districts, state and city governments across the country as they make budget cuts and lay off people. The evening news sounds downright apocalyptic.
Jesus talks about a time of wars and rumors of wars. He said, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be earthquakes in various places, and there will be famines and troubles. These are the beginnings of sorrows.” He goes on to talk about persecution, false prophets and lawlessness; then he concludes, “Then the end will come.” Some people think he was talking about today! There is a Biblical scholar named Harold Camping who is causing quite a stir these days by predicting the end of the world this year - 2011. He has set a date of May 21, 2011 for Judgment Day and October 21 as the date for the end of the world. But when Jesus said those words he was thinking primarily about his own times. He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.” He had in mind primarily the destruction of Jerusalem, which happened in 70 AD. Jesus lived in troubled times.
Jesus lived in a country occupied by the armies of the Roman Empire. Rome had conquered Israel in 63 BC, and had been ruling with an iron fist ever since. Herod the Great, appointed by Rome, was King of the Jews when Jesus was born; he was a brutal ruler. The autocrats in Middle Eastern countries today have nothing on him. Herod executed several members of his own family, including his wife Mariamne, and three of his sons, because he saw them as threats to his reign. In spite of these murders, he still considered himself an observant religious Jew, and he did not eat pork. It gave rise to Caesar Augustus’ famous remark about Herod, “I would rather be Herod's pig than his son.”
We tend to think of the crucifixion of Jesus as a unique event, but the crucifixion of people who were threats to the state was common. It was a form of torture and capital punishment frequently used before, during, and after Jesus’ lifetime. The first century Roman Jewish historian Josephus reports many crucifixions. Alexander Jannaeus, king of Judea in the first century BC, ordered 800 Pharisees to be crucified and their wives and children killed before their eyes, while he and his concubines were carousing. This event is alluded to in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Josephus reports that two thousand rebels were crucified by Roman governor Quintilius Varus early in Jesus’ lifetime. When Jerusalem was besieged in 66-70 AD, the Roman general Titus (later Caesar) ordered all Jewish prisoners of war to be crucified on the walls of the city and there were as many as 500 crucifixions per day.
It was an unsettled time. Both Roman governor Pilate and King Herod Antipas were on the lookout for any would be Messiahs who might lead a popular uprising against Rome – much like the revolts happening today in the Middle East. So as we celebrate Palm Sunday, we need to think of it as not dissimilar from what we are seeing today in that part of the world.
In those troubled times Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He chose to make his dramatic entrance into Jerusalem during Passover week – the holiest time of the year when tens of thousands of Jewish pilgrims from throughout the Roman world were gathered together. This was a very dangerous action to do. It is no wonder that he was arrested. And it is no great surprise that he was crucified. Anyone who did what he did at that time and place would have been asking for trouble.
I. Let us look at how Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
First, he came into Jerusalem deliberately. This was not a spur of the moment decision. Jesus had this all planned out. This fact is revealed in his mode of transport. The Gospel writers go into detail concerning how he acquired the donkey that he rode into Jerusalem. Jesus had this entry choreographed. He wasn’t walking into Jerusalem. He wasn’t entering on the shoulders of his disciples or even on a white horse. He was coming on a donkey. Why a donkey? Because it had been foretold by the prophet Zechariah 500 years earlier.
According to prophecy, the Messiah was supposed to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. By his choice of mounts, Jesus was proclaiming to the whole populace of Jerusalem and the wider Jewish world that he was the Messiah. In the minds of Jews and Romans, Messiah meant political king as well as spiritual leader. There was no separation of church and state back then. Jesus was already a controversial figure before Palm Sunday. But on that day the volume of the controversy increased a thousand-fold.
Jesus appears on the scene during troubled times. As individuals and families, we may be going through troubled times now. That is when Jesus appears. Of course he does not appear on a donkey riding down Burleigh Hill and through the streets of Sandwich, but he appears nonetheless. He doesn’t come riding on a white stallion to save the day and solve all our problems, but he appears nonetheless.
He appears humbly. Mark doesn’t use the word humble but the prophet Zechariah comes pretty close: “Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.” He is not only riding on a donkey – but on a young donkey, so young that no one had ever ridden it before. Jesus entered Jerusalem as humbly as he could and still come as Messiah.
Jesus today does not come to solve all our problems. Sorry, if you are looking for a quick fix for your health problems, marriage problems, family problems, financial problems, or any other problems, then Jesus is not the Messiah for you. He never promised to solve all our problems. He never promises us health and wealth and an easy life. In fact he promises just the opposite - that if we follow him we will have more problems. He promises a cross. He promises self-denial – not self-fulfillment.
But he also promises truth – real Truth, not dogma, ritual and rules masquerading as truth. And he promises life – real Life. Life abundant and full. “I came that they might have life and it abundantly.” The Christian life embraces everything the world can throw at us - happiness and sorrow, health and illness, life and death. Life in Christ does not escape from the hard parts of life. It embraces them and sanctifies them. That is what the Cross is about. The Cross is God embracing the brokenness of human suffering and coming out whole on the other side. This is what Jesus offers when he comes.
How else does he come? He comes weeping. Luke’s gospel tells us that as Jesus came down the Mount of Olives riding the donkey on Palm Sunday that he wept. “Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it.” (Luke 19:41) We don’t normally picture Jesus crying as he rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This is his big day. This is a parade in honor of him! People are waving palms and throwing their coats on the road before him, praising him and honoring him as Messiah. You would think this would be the happiest day of his life. But according to Scripture Jesus is in tears, and they are not tears of joy. Luke’s gospel makes that clear. Jesus weeps because the people of Jerusalem “do not know the things that make for peace.”
41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, 44 and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
Palm Sunday is a picture of God weeping over the spiritual blindness and the warring violence of man. Wouldn’t he also weep today over these same concerns? Do we really think our world today is less violent or less spiritually blind? Herod the Great considered himself a religious man and yet he murdered people. Do not religious radicals do the same thing today? Jesus came weeping.
Jesus also comes to cleanse. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus waits until the next day to cleanse the temple, but in Luke’s gospel it appears to happen on Palm Sunday itself. Jesus goes into the temple and in righteous zeal drives the moneychangers and the merchants from the temple courts, saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of thieves.’” When Jesus appears in trouble times, it is not to hold our hands. It is to set things right.
Most of us do not want a Savior who sets things right in our lives. We prefer one who will pat us on the back. We want a Savior who will affirm us in our sin, who will tell us we are alright just the way we are – there is no need to change. We want someone to sanctify our self-centeredness and bless our self-righteousness. We want someone who will bless our blindness, but Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind.
When Jesus comes into our lives, he comes to do some spring housecleaning. You know what it is he needs to clean up in your life this spring. I don’t need to name sins. If I did start naming sins, you might all defensive and block out whatever more I had to say. I let the Holy Spirit do the convicting people of sin! When the Holy Spirit speaks in the depths of our souls, we can’t blame it on a preacher. God speaks directly to our hearts. Christ wants to set things right in our lives. He wants to cleanse the temple, and we are that temple.
II. What is our response to Christ appearing in troubled times? The people who lined the road into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday responded in two ways.
First, they gave him the ancient equivalent of the Red Carpet treatment. Back then it was the literally a green carpet made of palm fronds. People also threw their clothing on the road for him to ride on. This was a way of honoring a great person. They ushered him into their city. When an important personage arrived in an ancient city, the populace always went outside the city gates and escorted the person into the city through the city gates. They opened their gates and invited him in. Today when particularly important foreign leaders arrive in our country, they are greeted at the airport – often on the tarmac - and are welcomed as they disembark from the plane. They are escorted into a waiting limo and brought into the city of Washington DC. That is what is happening here.
Second, they shouted, “Hosanna.” This is one of those interesting Biblical terms that have a double meaning. We immediately think of Hosanna as a exclamation of praise, kind of like Hallelujah! But it is much more than that. Halleluiah means “Praise God” in Hebrew. Hosanna is a Hebrew word that means literally, “Save us!” or “Save now.” The people are actually shouting, “Help us!” This complex word is both a cry for help and a shout of praise.
I like the word because it communicates the mixed feelings and mixed motives we have. We are here today to worship God, but we are also here because we need something from God. I have both of these aspects in my spiritual life. I praise and worship God. But I also confess that everything is not just right in my life; that is why I am here also. I need help from God and well as needing to give praise to God. So I say “Hosanna!” It is the perfect word for troubled times.
And that is what Palm Sunday is about. We live in troubled times. Some of our lives are more troubled than others. But each of us in our own way have things we are struggling with. Life is not easy. Palm Sunday reflects that reality. It is not a simple day of praise and rejoicing. It is also a day of weeping and a day of cleansing, a day to shout, “Hosanna! Lord, help us!” Christ is the Messiah for troubled times, but then and now.
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