Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009
Rev. Amy Sens
Scripture: Mark 16:1-8
Good morning. Christ is Risen! Thanks be to God. Today, I’d like to take some time with you to think about what it was like for those women on that very first Easter, and to consider what it means for us. Jesus’ resurrection is a bold claim by God on all of our lives. It is a miracle and a sign of hope. It is good news! Will you pray with me?
Prayer:
God, in the resurrection of Jesus, you have overcome death. We don’t know how this mystery comes about, or even, sometimes, what to believe about it. Open our hearts, open our minds, and open our lives to the risen Christ. These things we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The women who came to the tomb on that first Easter morning were not expecting a resurrection. They had been witnesses to Jesus’ bloody, brutal death on the cross. He had been their teacher and leader, and now he was dead. And as a final tribute to him, they planned to care for his body – to dress it and attend to it, and to apply burial ointments. They walk to the tomb where he has been buried, sad, mournful, and a little worried, “There is a big stone in the way of the tomb,” they say to each other. “Who will move it out of the way for us?” They are focused on the practical details. They are not expecting a resurrection.
Imagine you’re driving down a road you follow pretty often, maybe one that you take to get home, and you see signs of construction. There are orange diamond-shaped signs, there are workers with signs signaling “Slow,” or “Stop,” and there are traffic cones guiding you out of your usual lane. You would expect there to be some construction going on. All the clues point to it. What if, instead of construction, the road leads around a bend, and suddenly you’re at the edge of a cliff, looking out at the Grand Canyon? Would your first reaction be one of joy and celebration?
Death is one of the few constants in our lives. Loved ones and pets, dear friends and arch rivals, the famous and the insignificant, all of us, even we ourselves, will one day die. But in the resurrection of Jesus, God adds a big, fat, comma to the sentence where death used to be the period.
Everyone must die, (comma), but Jesus died and rose again.
Our lives must end, (comma) but Jesus promises eternal life
Death was the final answer, (comma), until God decided it wasn’t anymore.
The women coming to the tomb on that first Easter morning are expecting Jesus to stay dead. They are hoping to put a period at the end of his sentence. They are planning to honor what his life meant to them, and then to move on. So their first reaction is not joy and celebration. Their first reaction is surprise and fear. What can this possibly mean?
In the last two thousand years or so, we’ve had the chance to get over some of the surprise of Jesus’ resurrection. We’ve started learning to scale the majestic beauty of the canyons left behind when God swallowed death up. We’ve had a chance to reflect, and in some ways, to get used to the idea. But that question still sticks with us: What can this possibly mean? What can this mean for me and for my life? What can it mean for living a Christian life in response to the resurrection?
Death swallowed up leaves behind a big hole in the way things normally go. We can let go of fear. We can let go of our grudges and resentments. We can let go of the pressure to be perfect. The resurrection of Jesus changes everything.
I’ll close with a story. Once upon a time, there was a mining town where all the people dug deep under the ground to find what mattered most to them – veins of silver, sparkling jewels, iron and copper ore. But they worked so hard and so long that when they went underground it was dark, and when they came out of the ground it was dark. Even the children worked this way, scaling down deep tunnels, dimly lit, to claw and scrabble at the rock, hour after hour, day after day, year after year.
The people knew that there was sunlight during the day, and at night they breathed the freshness of the air. But they said to themselves, even as they thought of the daylight and the fresh air, “It is more important to fight the rock and find what we need, than to waste even a few moments in the sun. It cannot be so good, can it?” And they worked and worked. Then one day, a stranger came to the mining town. He looked like the mining town people, and he spoke like them, but he acted very differently. He came down into the mines to speak to the people, but then he would climb back out again, without any silver or jewels to carry away.
“What do you do without treasures?” the people asked him.
“The sun is my gold,” he said, “and the moon is my silver. Come with me and we can live in the light in freedom together.”
Most of the people thought this was foolishness, and went on working in the mines. “That freedom is death!” they said to one another, nodding in solemn agreement. But some of the young ones, and the tired ones, and the ones who didn’t have much of a stockpile to guard, these began to stay up above the ground with the stranger, even as the light was cresting the horizon with golden rays. And a few would leave their work early to catch the last gentle rays of the setting sun. The stranger would eat with them, simple meals, but ones he blessed with thanksgiving and joy. He would pray: “Today is enough for today, God, and we give you thanks.” The people were pale and tired from their work, but the sun warmed them, and the simple meals helped them feel strong.
One day the stranger was gone, and his new friends looked everywhere to try to find him, but he was nowhere to be found. To remember him, they began to eat their meals as he had, giving thanks for the beauty of sun and moon, and lifting their hands to God with joy. Together they ventured out further and further into the light, and their skin grew healthy and their tiredness melted away. And slowly, others began to join them and live the new life of freedom with them. Then one day, as they were eating together, they saw the stranger again. His joy was in the face of each person gathered around the table. And some of them felt as though they could hear his voice saying, “Today is enough for today, God, and we give you thanks.” And they were full of thanks, indeed. Alleluia, Amen.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Path Jesus Walked
Good Friday, April 10, 2009
Rev. Amy Sens
Tenebrae Service
The word tenebrae, which is the name for the service we are holding tonight, means shadows. And in the readings and hymns we’ll hear and sing, we remember the shadows that fell on Jesus’ path as he faced his death on the cross. Each candle, as it goes out, is a symbol of the burden Jesus carries growing heavier and heavier.
There are theologians who argue that Jesus’ death on the cross was not a way of appeasing God, or somehow satisfying a heavenly judgment. I am inclined to agree with them, even though I know that’s not the usual approach. God did not plan or cause Jesus’ death as a way of totaling up the heavenly accounting, to make the balance sheets come out right. Instead, Jesus’ sacrifice in death in the Gospels, is both something that must not be, and something that is necessary and unavoidable. By dying on the cross, Jesus becomes the final necessary sacrifice, and his sacrifice is only necessary because it is the only way to bring about the end of sacrifice.
There are plenty of people who have walked the path Jesus walked – whose lives were demanded of them for the sake of ideology and fear, for the peace and the comfort of the powerful. We can think of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Cesar Chavez, who were assassinated, for example. Or the hundreds of thousands and millions who lost their lives to brutal ideology and unscrupulous powers in the Holocaust, and in the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur.
In Guantanamo Bay today, there are 17 Chinese Muslims who have been held in detention for seven years. They cannot be returned to China, because they might be tortured there, but politically, they can’t live in the US, either. So they’ve lived in no-man’s land for seven years, in a prisoner’s camp halfway across the world from home, and have watched their lives drain away slowly. They are caught in the cogs of the state machinery.
Jesus wasn’t a triumphant war god, like the Romans’ Mars or like Caesar, whom they worshipped. He was powerless by the usual standards of wealth or political influence, and so when he inconvenienced the powers-that-be, it was very easy for them to catch him up in the cogs of the state machinery, and spit him out again like so much refuse on the horrifying, humiliating cross.
But the Romans didn’t crucify some lowly insurrectionist. They crucified God. And suddenly everything is in question. How could the greatest political power on earth be set against God’s own self? How is it even possible for God to be crucified? And what does that say about all the other people we’ve crucified?
Jesus’ death brings to light all the other cruel deaths suffered by poor and powerless people, and peels away the sheen of legitimacy that power can sometimes use to paint over brutality and killing.
Jesus walked the path he walked, not to please God, not as a way of paying God back for all our mistakes, but to turn our world inside out. Jesus came in love, proclaiming a new kingdom unlike any the world had ever seen, and it was too much. The path he walked led to his death. Tonight we remember that path and the shadows cast on it, and we are mourners, witnesses and culprits. The path Jesus walked brings into relief our own faults as people and as a community. Let us walk this holy path with fear and trembling, and let us trust Jesus to walk the lonesome valley with us. Amen.
Rev. Amy Sens
Tenebrae Service
The word tenebrae, which is the name for the service we are holding tonight, means shadows. And in the readings and hymns we’ll hear and sing, we remember the shadows that fell on Jesus’ path as he faced his death on the cross. Each candle, as it goes out, is a symbol of the burden Jesus carries growing heavier and heavier.
There are theologians who argue that Jesus’ death on the cross was not a way of appeasing God, or somehow satisfying a heavenly judgment. I am inclined to agree with them, even though I know that’s not the usual approach. God did not plan or cause Jesus’ death as a way of totaling up the heavenly accounting, to make the balance sheets come out right. Instead, Jesus’ sacrifice in death in the Gospels, is both something that must not be, and something that is necessary and unavoidable. By dying on the cross, Jesus becomes the final necessary sacrifice, and his sacrifice is only necessary because it is the only way to bring about the end of sacrifice.
There are plenty of people who have walked the path Jesus walked – whose lives were demanded of them for the sake of ideology and fear, for the peace and the comfort of the powerful. We can think of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Cesar Chavez, who were assassinated, for example. Or the hundreds of thousands and millions who lost their lives to brutal ideology and unscrupulous powers in the Holocaust, and in the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur.
In Guantanamo Bay today, there are 17 Chinese Muslims who have been held in detention for seven years. They cannot be returned to China, because they might be tortured there, but politically, they can’t live in the US, either. So they’ve lived in no-man’s land for seven years, in a prisoner’s camp halfway across the world from home, and have watched their lives drain away slowly. They are caught in the cogs of the state machinery.
Jesus wasn’t a triumphant war god, like the Romans’ Mars or like Caesar, whom they worshipped. He was powerless by the usual standards of wealth or political influence, and so when he inconvenienced the powers-that-be, it was very easy for them to catch him up in the cogs of the state machinery, and spit him out again like so much refuse on the horrifying, humiliating cross.
But the Romans didn’t crucify some lowly insurrectionist. They crucified God. And suddenly everything is in question. How could the greatest political power on earth be set against God’s own self? How is it even possible for God to be crucified? And what does that say about all the other people we’ve crucified?
Jesus’ death brings to light all the other cruel deaths suffered by poor and powerless people, and peels away the sheen of legitimacy that power can sometimes use to paint over brutality and killing.
Jesus walked the path he walked, not to please God, not as a way of paying God back for all our mistakes, but to turn our world inside out. Jesus came in love, proclaiming a new kingdom unlike any the world had ever seen, and it was too much. The path he walked led to his death. Tonight we remember that path and the shadows cast on it, and we are mourners, witnesses and culprits. The path Jesus walked brings into relief our own faults as people and as a community. Let us walk this holy path with fear and trembling, and let us trust Jesus to walk the lonesome valley with us. Amen.
A New Covenant
Maundy Thursday, April 9, 2009
Rev. Amy Sens
Scriptures: Exodus 24:3-8, Mark 14:12-26
Every year at my job during this time of year, I interview bunches of people who are interested in being volunteers as their full-time job for a year, and then my coworkers and I decide together where each person we’ve let in should go – which jobs, which cities, across the country. So, yesterday, I found out about 12 of the 19 or 20 people who will be coming to my cities next year. It’s a very exciting moment, even though most of these people are just names on a page, or sometimes voices over the phone for me. I begin to wonder, based on the barest of biographical data, what they will be like. Will they be kind and generous, or hard to please? Will they be good workers, or cause trouble at their jobs? Will they get along in community, or will they make their housemates’ lives difficult?
It’s a very exciting moment, thinking ahead to the new year that starts in August. And yet, it contains within it the seeds of disappointment, because I know that some of my volunteers will not be easy to work with. Don't get me wrong - they're all really great, but they're human, too. They will have trials and disappointments, and disagree, and make trouble. That’s part of the deal. That's why I have a job in the first place. It's to be expected.
So it’s amazing to me to see how Jesus handles setting up a whole new way of life with his disciples in our gospel reading. This moment is a very dramatic one in the lives of Jesus and his disciples. They have come into Jerusalem, the big city, to bring Jesus’ big and wonderful message of the kingdom – the realm – of God. There has been success and excitement, yes, in the entry into Jerusalem, in Jesus’ intellectual sparring with the chief priests, the temple authorities, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scholars, and other important people. And yet, there is danger in the air, too. Jesus, looking ahead, knows this is the last time he’ll be with his disciples, and what he chooses to do is to make a new covenant with them out of his own body and blood.
What Jesus’ covenant is modeled on, we hear in our story from Exodus, when Moses takes an animal and kills it to seal the people’s covenant with God. Moses presents the people with all the rules and regulations they are to obey, and they agree. “Everything that you have said, we will do,” they promise. It is a time of a new beginning, a new promise, and Moses will go with them to lead them into it.
And yet, when Jesus stands up to make a new covenant, he takes the place of the sacrificial animal, and he does it knowing full well that one of the very people he is eating with that night will be the one to betray him to that death. This is a new and bright beginning, but within it are the seeds of bitterness, suffering and death. A strange new covenant, indeed.
And yet, that is how God is with us. God doesn’t wait until we’re perfect to reach out to us and love us. God doesn’t wait until we have withstood every test, overcome every obstacle, and accomplished every lofty goal before being bound to us. Jesus covenants with Judas, even as he sits at the table, betrayal in his heart.
What I leave with in this story is that even though the new covenant Jesus begins on this night, bravely, with his own sweat and tears, with his own body, blood and soul, even though that covenant is already compromised, even before it is begun, in spite of all this, Jesus knows that God is at work and will bring about the new kingdom – the realm of God. “Truly,” Jesus declares, “truly I tell you, I will not drink the fruit of the vine again until I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Thanks be to God, Amen.
Rev. Amy Sens
Scriptures: Exodus 24:3-8, Mark 14:12-26
Every year at my job during this time of year, I interview bunches of people who are interested in being volunteers as their full-time job for a year, and then my coworkers and I decide together where each person we’ve let in should go – which jobs, which cities, across the country. So, yesterday, I found out about 12 of the 19 or 20 people who will be coming to my cities next year. It’s a very exciting moment, even though most of these people are just names on a page, or sometimes voices over the phone for me. I begin to wonder, based on the barest of biographical data, what they will be like. Will they be kind and generous, or hard to please? Will they be good workers, or cause trouble at their jobs? Will they get along in community, or will they make their housemates’ lives difficult?
It’s a very exciting moment, thinking ahead to the new year that starts in August. And yet, it contains within it the seeds of disappointment, because I know that some of my volunteers will not be easy to work with. Don't get me wrong - they're all really great, but they're human, too. They will have trials and disappointments, and disagree, and make trouble. That’s part of the deal. That's why I have a job in the first place. It's to be expected.
So it’s amazing to me to see how Jesus handles setting up a whole new way of life with his disciples in our gospel reading. This moment is a very dramatic one in the lives of Jesus and his disciples. They have come into Jerusalem, the big city, to bring Jesus’ big and wonderful message of the kingdom – the realm – of God. There has been success and excitement, yes, in the entry into Jerusalem, in Jesus’ intellectual sparring with the chief priests, the temple authorities, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scholars, and other important people. And yet, there is danger in the air, too. Jesus, looking ahead, knows this is the last time he’ll be with his disciples, and what he chooses to do is to make a new covenant with them out of his own body and blood.
What Jesus’ covenant is modeled on, we hear in our story from Exodus, when Moses takes an animal and kills it to seal the people’s covenant with God. Moses presents the people with all the rules and regulations they are to obey, and they agree. “Everything that you have said, we will do,” they promise. It is a time of a new beginning, a new promise, and Moses will go with them to lead them into it.
And yet, when Jesus stands up to make a new covenant, he takes the place of the sacrificial animal, and he does it knowing full well that one of the very people he is eating with that night will be the one to betray him to that death. This is a new and bright beginning, but within it are the seeds of bitterness, suffering and death. A strange new covenant, indeed.
And yet, that is how God is with us. God doesn’t wait until we’re perfect to reach out to us and love us. God doesn’t wait until we have withstood every test, overcome every obstacle, and accomplished every lofty goal before being bound to us. Jesus covenants with Judas, even as he sits at the table, betrayal in his heart.
What I leave with in this story is that even though the new covenant Jesus begins on this night, bravely, with his own sweat and tears, with his own body, blood and soul, even though that covenant is already compromised, even before it is begun, in spite of all this, Jesus knows that God is at work and will bring about the new kingdom – the realm of God. “Truly,” Jesus declares, “truly I tell you, I will not drink the fruit of the vine again until I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” Thanks be to God, Amen.
Monday, April 6, 2009
What You See And What You Get
Palm Sunday, April 5, 2009
Scripture: Mark 11:1-11
Rev. Amy Sens
Good morning, friends. It’s a pleasure to celebrate Palm Sunday with you. This is one of the most interesting Sundays of the year – there are waving palm branches – very exotic – and we have a preview, too, of the most important week in the Christian calendar, when Jesus is arrested, questioned, crucified, and dies, but somehow by God’s grace and amazing power, Jesus comes back to life again. But that’s all next week, and you’ll have to come to the services to hear about it. Today we just get a preview, and yet somehow the whole story is wrapped up – foreshadowed, if you will – in the story of Jesus arriving in Jerusalem. I’d like to begin with a sung prayer. If you know it, please feel free to sing along. Let us pray.
Spirit of the Living God
There are a lot of strange things going on in our Gospel lesson this morning – the story Mark tells about Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. As Mark tells the story, this is the first time Jesus has ever been to Jerusalem; he’s a country boy, after all, from the back woods of Galilee. Up until this point, Jesus has been teaching people about the realm of God, a kind of parallel reality that supports our own, that exists at the same time as our own, and that is actually the true and real reality God calls us to live in. The kingdom – the realm – of God is present all around us, and all we have to do is turn our lives in a new direction and trust in the good news about it.
That has been Jesus’ story all along, out in the countryside, and the time has come now for him to bring the good news into the big city. Jerusalem. For the people of Judea in that time, Jerusalem has a long and storied history. This was the city David chose, in the glory days, as the center of his kingdom. And his son Solomon built the first Temple to God there. When the people of Judah were captured by the Babylonians, it was the destruction of Jerusalem that symbolized their defeat. And when the walls of Jerusalem were restored, and the temple was rebuilt seventy years later, it was the symbol of God’s favor and blessing – returning them home to their holy city. Jerusalem is the center of the culture, politics, and religion of Judea, and Jesus is arriving there for the first time.
What Jesus does is a little strange. He asks a couple of disciples to go into the town ahead of them and borrow a colt that has never been ridden on before. Then, his disciples put their cloaks on the back of the colt, and Jesus gets on it to ride it into town. They form a procession, with people laying down cloaks and palm branches in front of Jesus, and waving more branches and shouting, “Save us! Save us!” (which is what “Hosanna” means) “Save us, oh son of David, bring us into your kingdom!” A big crowd forms, lots of people are watching and maybe getting into the act, and then it’s over. The procession was actually the big deal – Jesus goes into the temple, looks around a little bit, and goes back to Bethany to spend the night with friends.
What on earth does all this mean? There are some things it would be helpful to know looking at this text. First off, Jesus saw himself as being in the tradition of the ancient Judean prophets – people like Hosea and Ezekiel and Elijah. These guys had plenty of speeches to give – usually to call Israel back to faithfulness to God – but sometimes they used their actions to communicate more than just words can. Hosea married a prostitute. Ezekiel built a model of Jerusalem, complete with an iron pan as a siege wall. Elijah set up a contest between himself and the prophets of other gods to demonstrate the faithfulness of Yahweh.
Jesus, on his way into Jerusalem, was telling us about the kingdom – the realm – of God. On the other side of town, also making his way into Jerusalem for the Passover festival, the biggest festival of the year, was the Roman governor, Pilate, and you can bet that Pilate wasn’t riding on an unbroken colt. He would have had a tremendous war-horse, and be preceded and followed by impressive displays of power – war-elephants, maybe, and regiments of soldiers in their dress uniforms. Today, we might expect Pilate to arrive in a sleek, well-armored limousine, while Jesus rides in on a scooter, and a borrowed one, at that. And yet the fun and the joy of it is that the crowd greets Jesus as a king – paving his way with cloaks and palm branches, and shouting, “Hosanna!” What you see is Jesus in humble attire, and what you get is the arrival of a new kind of kingdom.
I think I know some of what is going on with Jesus – he’s poking fun at the authorities, who think that their power in this life is somehow the most permanent and most meaningful. And I think he’s also bringing hope to the regular people, saying that there is another way to live, and God is with you to help you see it and live it. What I wonder about is the crowd. Do his disciples get what is going on? Do they trust in God’s new realm the way Jesus does? Or are they hoping Jesus will be the one to kick the Romans out of Jerusalem and Judea? Do they know who Jesus really is? What kind of salvation are they hoping for? What do they think is going to happen when Jesus starts spreading his message in Jerusalem?
We know the rest of the story, of course. Jesus is both less and much, much more than the disciples could possibly have realized at the time. And the salvation they call for, shouting “Hosanna, Hosanna,” is not just for the people of Judea two thousand years ago. It is for all people, and it is for us.
Jesus didn’t have a lot in terms of material possessions. He borrows the colt he rides into Jerusalem on. His disciples are mostly country people with very little influence or pull. And yet, who do you think Jerusalem was buzzing about that next day? The Roman governor Pilate and his latest set of dress uniforms? Or Jesus, riding on a colt and inviting everyone into a new way of life with playfulness, but also with bravery and strength? Who are we still talking about now?
This week, we’ll walk at Jesus’ side and remember the journey he takes into overwhelming suffering and a shameful death. This is not the journey the disciples were expecting on Palm Sunday. But what we know now is that to hail Jesus as our Sovereign and our Savior is more right and true than the disciples could have ever known. Let us enter into his presence with fear and trembling. Let us enter his presence with joy and thanksgiving. Thanks be to God and Hosanna in the Highest. Amen.
Scripture: Mark 11:1-11
Rev. Amy Sens
Good morning, friends. It’s a pleasure to celebrate Palm Sunday with you. This is one of the most interesting Sundays of the year – there are waving palm branches – very exotic – and we have a preview, too, of the most important week in the Christian calendar, when Jesus is arrested, questioned, crucified, and dies, but somehow by God’s grace and amazing power, Jesus comes back to life again. But that’s all next week, and you’ll have to come to the services to hear about it. Today we just get a preview, and yet somehow the whole story is wrapped up – foreshadowed, if you will – in the story of Jesus arriving in Jerusalem. I’d like to begin with a sung prayer. If you know it, please feel free to sing along. Let us pray.
Spirit of the Living God
There are a lot of strange things going on in our Gospel lesson this morning – the story Mark tells about Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem. As Mark tells the story, this is the first time Jesus has ever been to Jerusalem; he’s a country boy, after all, from the back woods of Galilee. Up until this point, Jesus has been teaching people about the realm of God, a kind of parallel reality that supports our own, that exists at the same time as our own, and that is actually the true and real reality God calls us to live in. The kingdom – the realm – of God is present all around us, and all we have to do is turn our lives in a new direction and trust in the good news about it.
That has been Jesus’ story all along, out in the countryside, and the time has come now for him to bring the good news into the big city. Jerusalem. For the people of Judea in that time, Jerusalem has a long and storied history. This was the city David chose, in the glory days, as the center of his kingdom. And his son Solomon built the first Temple to God there. When the people of Judah were captured by the Babylonians, it was the destruction of Jerusalem that symbolized their defeat. And when the walls of Jerusalem were restored, and the temple was rebuilt seventy years later, it was the symbol of God’s favor and blessing – returning them home to their holy city. Jerusalem is the center of the culture, politics, and religion of Judea, and Jesus is arriving there for the first time.
What Jesus does is a little strange. He asks a couple of disciples to go into the town ahead of them and borrow a colt that has never been ridden on before. Then, his disciples put their cloaks on the back of the colt, and Jesus gets on it to ride it into town. They form a procession, with people laying down cloaks and palm branches in front of Jesus, and waving more branches and shouting, “Save us! Save us!” (which is what “Hosanna” means) “Save us, oh son of David, bring us into your kingdom!” A big crowd forms, lots of people are watching and maybe getting into the act, and then it’s over. The procession was actually the big deal – Jesus goes into the temple, looks around a little bit, and goes back to Bethany to spend the night with friends.
What on earth does all this mean? There are some things it would be helpful to know looking at this text. First off, Jesus saw himself as being in the tradition of the ancient Judean prophets – people like Hosea and Ezekiel and Elijah. These guys had plenty of speeches to give – usually to call Israel back to faithfulness to God – but sometimes they used their actions to communicate more than just words can. Hosea married a prostitute. Ezekiel built a model of Jerusalem, complete with an iron pan as a siege wall. Elijah set up a contest between himself and the prophets of other gods to demonstrate the faithfulness of Yahweh.
Jesus, on his way into Jerusalem, was telling us about the kingdom – the realm – of God. On the other side of town, also making his way into Jerusalem for the Passover festival, the biggest festival of the year, was the Roman governor, Pilate, and you can bet that Pilate wasn’t riding on an unbroken colt. He would have had a tremendous war-horse, and be preceded and followed by impressive displays of power – war-elephants, maybe, and regiments of soldiers in their dress uniforms. Today, we might expect Pilate to arrive in a sleek, well-armored limousine, while Jesus rides in on a scooter, and a borrowed one, at that. And yet the fun and the joy of it is that the crowd greets Jesus as a king – paving his way with cloaks and palm branches, and shouting, “Hosanna!” What you see is Jesus in humble attire, and what you get is the arrival of a new kind of kingdom.
I think I know some of what is going on with Jesus – he’s poking fun at the authorities, who think that their power in this life is somehow the most permanent and most meaningful. And I think he’s also bringing hope to the regular people, saying that there is another way to live, and God is with you to help you see it and live it. What I wonder about is the crowd. Do his disciples get what is going on? Do they trust in God’s new realm the way Jesus does? Or are they hoping Jesus will be the one to kick the Romans out of Jerusalem and Judea? Do they know who Jesus really is? What kind of salvation are they hoping for? What do they think is going to happen when Jesus starts spreading his message in Jerusalem?
We know the rest of the story, of course. Jesus is both less and much, much more than the disciples could possibly have realized at the time. And the salvation they call for, shouting “Hosanna, Hosanna,” is not just for the people of Judea two thousand years ago. It is for all people, and it is for us.
Jesus didn’t have a lot in terms of material possessions. He borrows the colt he rides into Jerusalem on. His disciples are mostly country people with very little influence or pull. And yet, who do you think Jerusalem was buzzing about that next day? The Roman governor Pilate and his latest set of dress uniforms? Or Jesus, riding on a colt and inviting everyone into a new way of life with playfulness, but also with bravery and strength? Who are we still talking about now?
This week, we’ll walk at Jesus’ side and remember the journey he takes into overwhelming suffering and a shameful death. This is not the journey the disciples were expecting on Palm Sunday. But what we know now is that to hail Jesus as our Sovereign and our Savior is more right and true than the disciples could have ever known. Let us enter into his presence with fear and trembling. Let us enter his presence with joy and thanksgiving. Thanks be to God and Hosanna in the Highest. Amen.
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