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.