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Palm Sunday/The Sixth Sunday in Lent, 03/16/2008
Sermon on Matthew 21:1-11, by Hubert Beck
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village in front of you, and 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, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once." This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, "Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'" The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, "Who is this?" And the crowds said, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee." (English Standard Version)
SEEING THE END IN THE BEGINNING
Mystery writers commonly hold their readers in suspense by various methods of "concealment" and even "deceit" until the very end of the story when the culprit is discovered and brought to justice.
On occasion, however, a mystery writer may tell who the culprit is, what he / she did, how the deed was done, etc., from the very beginning and then raise the suspense by alternate methods of telling the story, suggesting how the culprit had escaped detection for so long, what had happened between the deed and the discovery, etc.
That is how we read the Palm Sunday story - from the end to its beginning. Admittedly, of course, those participating in that story could not read it that way. For them it was an unfolding story while for us it is an already unfolded story.
WE KNOW THE END FROM ITS BEGINNING
As we enter this week called "holy" in the calendar of the church, then, we know from the beginning what its end will be - although we also know that its "end" is a "new beginning." It is hard, therefore, to observe this week with anything like the same tension experienced by the disciples, others who considered themselves followers of Jesus, the religious authorities, the political authorities or anyone else associated with this week. To be sure, each of them had a different level of tension, a different level of anxiety, a different level of nervousness, a different level of apprehension. All alike, though, sensed that something of an epical moment was at hand. Everyone was "on edge" in one way or another as Jesus came near to Jerusalem.
The fact is, Jesus, himself, raised all those sensitivities to the highest level imaginable. They were not incidental to the week. They were the result of a long history of events that preceded this week. The different gospel narratives help us realize that Jesus, as he approached Jerusalem, was, with considerable deliberation, raising the level of excitement to a virtually shrill pitch. It was becoming increasingly apparent that something was bound to break loose.
The events of Palm Sunday set everything and everybody in Jerusalem on the alert. We are not told of what the government was doing at the time, but it is hard to imagine that Pilate did not have the entire Roman guard on the alert to quell any hint of a riot. The religious authorities were quite clearly aware that they may have to move hard against Jesus. (John 11:47-53) Their problem was how to make their move apart from setting the crowd off into a tizzy, for they recognized that a riot would be the last thing they wanted even apart from the implications it would raise for the political authorities. Jesus' disciples had been trying to get him to abort the trip to Jerusalem, for they recognized that he was placing himself into the very midst of great danger. Wherever one looked, all the elements of peril and risk were present. While we know where it was all headed, nobody at the time knew anything of where it would all end up.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
So Jesus began his final trek to Jerusalem. He did it with a flourish designed to enhance the tension that was already present in the city.
"Go into the village in front of you, and 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, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once." Can you imagine a way to begin this week that would be less - or more, for that matter - inflammatory than that?
"Just go and get the donkey with its colt, untie them and bring them to me!" In today's terms it is not unlike one of our presidential candidates telling his / her followers to go and find a Chevrolet (donkeys were "Chevrolet types" - it would have taken a large white military stallion to equal a Mercedes Benz!) with the keys in it, fire it up, and bring it to him / her. That was enough to get things stirred up in a hurry!
"If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once." Did Jesus have something of a "set-up" here with some fore-planning? It is hard to say, but the way he orders his disciples to tell the owner why they were taking the animals suggests that it was enough to tell the man that Jesus "needed" them - whatever that "need" might be - and that was enough. Not only was he told - he even gave permission to do so, evidently. And then he very likely "immediately" (a word the writers like to use with actions revolving around Jesus) began to let everybody in the vicinity know that something extremely unusual was happening.
The basic effect - however the scene unfolded - was this: the word went out in a hurry that Jesus was about to make a dramatic entry into Jerusalem! Never, at any time before or after, do we hear of Jesus riding any kind of animal. The riding alone would seem to arouse the idea that he was entering the city in a royal manner.
A "royal" manner? Maybe on that large white military stallion the equivalent of a Mercedes Benz, but hardly on a donkey - a beast of burden - with a colt close beside its side! (Mark even adds the note that it was a beast "upon which no one has ever sat" - an "unbroken colt"!) What a strange combination - riding, but on such a lowly and unlikely animal. At any rate, when the word got out - and it surely seems to have gotten out and around very widely and quickly - it raised many an eyebrow - in consternation for some and in anticipation among others - of some major event! A highly charged atmosphere was beginning to explode into a major eruption of some sort.
Matthew stops the story long enough to note that these events were "extensions," in a sense, of the prophet Zechariah's reassuring words spoken to Israel long ago when their spirits were sagging as they looked upon the sad replica of the original temple that had now been rebuilt and saw the sorry state of affairs in the remnant of Israel that had returned out of Babylon. "Do not despair," Zechariah had cried out. "Be sure that God's saving action is near - even if and when the one who brings it comes on such a humble beast as a donkey with its foal alongside!"
The people sensed what you might call a "resurrection of hope" in this Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. They had waited a long time for this moment of which Zechariah had spoken - four hundred years or so, in fact - and they were overjoyed to think that their very eyes were seeing the promises uttered through the prophet coming to a full fruition in this Jesus of Nazareth. Their hopes - and their voices - soared! The air was electric!
The excitement caught on in a hurry. Crowds gathered. The disciples, caught up in the excitement, threw their cloaks over the donkey and led it triumphantly into the midst of the crowd with Jesus sitting on it. The crowds threw their cloaks down, making a cloth road for Jesus to ride on. Branches cut off from trees were thrown down in front of him. When one reads this Gospel for today with all the exhilaration built into it and all the anticipation it carried one is, to this very day, thrilled at the very narration itself!
The crowds could not control themselves. "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest."
Our ears of today find it hard to catch the implicit intimations of this cry. While "hosanna" was shouted out as a cry of honor and adulation, it had beneath and within it the original idea that gave birth to the word: "Save, now!" or "Save, we pray!" It was a call for Jesus to take up the rule of King David, out of whose line he had been born. The "hosanna" did not stand alone. It was coupled with King David! "Hosanna to the Son of David!"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" The hopes and dreams of many, many years were wrapped up in that cry. The expectations and anticipations of generation after generation before them were expressed in the acclamation that greeted Jesus as he entered the already tense city.
As an aside, we might note that these very words, used liturgically by the church over the course of centuries, are some of the words we sing or say in our preparations for the Holy Eucharist! We do well to remember, as we sing or say these words, that they are ways to express the confidence we have that in and with this sacred eating and drinking we will receive the very body and blood of our Lord, the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. They are, by no means, mere idle "liturgical words" to be said or sung thoughtlessly! Through them we stand alongside those gathered on this road into Jerusalem on this day long ago, praising God and urgently beseeching him to grant us his saving presence in the eating and drinking in which we will shortly participate.
"The whole city was stirred up, saying, ‘Who is this?'" The reply came: "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee." Is it possible for us today to recognize the enthusiastic zeal - and the agitation - that accompanied this parade of people shouting and crying out and praising and hailing Jesus? I hardly think we can. But we must make the effort, for only then can we sense that the events of this day are moving toward the end from its beginning at the same time we sense that this is the beginning of the end.
ON THE WAY TO THE END
It is of utmost importance that we remember again at this point how this whole scene unfolded. It was initiated, stimulated, and brought to a head by Jesus, himself. There is no "outside force" at work here - not the disciples, not the crowd, not the governing authorities, not the religious authorities - nobody other than Jesus himself. The reason we must recognize this is so that we are clear about who is "in charge" of the entire week that now lies before us no less than he is "in charge" of this day.
Others tried desperately to "get hold" of the initiative, to wrest control of the events of this week out of the hands of Jesus. But none could do it. From this point on it became clear that the week before us, rehearsed for us at great length in the passion reading assigned for this service and then heard over again in all its detail through the coming week, was always being controlled and directed by him whose death would climax the events on Good Friday. While others made their futile attempts at managing and organizing the events of this week, Jesus, with strong will and intensity of strength, held the reins for all that now took place. This is essential to understanding this week - and it is imperative that we sense this today as we wave our palms and sing the praises of him who entered Jerusalem, only to stir it up in such a way that it inevitably did the will of him who entered it.
The very next event that Matthew records following Jesus' entry into Jerusalem is his entry into the temple to cleanse it with the heated words, "It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you make it a den of robbers." Instead of accepting the accolades of the crowd and heading for the Roman headquarters to take charge of it, he dismounts from the donkey, strides vehemently into the "religious headquarters," so to speak, and makes a divine commotion in "his Father's house." The uproar over this undoubtedly made the religious authorities more sure than ever that they must rid Israel of this man.
At the same time the multitude must have become terribly confused about what they had just witnessed in what appeared to them as an aborted moment of possibility when he did not make use of his dramatic entry into Jerusalem. Instead of pressing for political advantage, as they had hoped, he challenged the religious authorities in the temple. What were they to make of all this?
This movement of events only substantiates what we just said: Jesus, himself, is in charge of events. From the expectations of the crowds to the irritation of the religious authorities, he has crossed everybody up and made clear that he is, as we say today, "his own man."
THE END WE KNEW WAS COMING
So we sense already in the events of Palm Sunday the coming of the cross on Good Friday. Through these events we see deeply into the faith that was expressed in that ancient hymn quoted by Paul when he wrote to the Philippian congregation as we heard it today. This Christ, whose origin is from eternity, "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant . . . and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Notice the words carefully: "He made himself nothing . . . He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." He was not a victim of forces he could not control. Rather, he controlled the forces around him in such a fashion that they served his purposes! Is this not the wonder of the cross? Is this not the wonder of how God works around and among us to this day, for that matter? We humans are so beset with the idea that we are the controlling powers of the world while ever so quietly and unobtrusively God does his work among us and for us!
Well, in a sense, I suppose, we are, after a fashion, the "controlling powers of the world." That is precisely why the world is like it is, is it not? Our control is always in our own best self-interest, of course. Our own best self-interest, in turn, is virtually always at the expense of the next person's best self-interest. Therefore we all infringe on the self-interests of each other, thus setting up all the elements of conflict that make war among the multitude of self-interests that both surround us in our immediate arena of life and in the larger arena of the entire world.
What would things look like if everybody looked after the other person's best self-interest and every nation looked after the best self-interests of the nations with whom it is inter-acting? The world would look a good deal different - and better, would it not - both in the circumstances of our individual lives and in the larger circumstances of the world.
The Bible has a word for what would govern such inter-actions: Love!
It is the very word that defines God, St. John says. (I John 4:7-12) It is the very word that governs Jesus' actions during the week that now lies before us. Follow him closely and see!
It is the way set before us by the one loosely identified as the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, whose words form our First Lesson for today when he says: "The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. . . . I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord God helps me, therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near." (Isaiah 50:4-8a ESV) Do we not see the shadows of this One who rides into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday with his "face set like a flint" toward the place where he will "give his back to those who strike and his cheeks to those who pull out the beard?" He is sure that he "will not be disgraced" for "he who vindicates me is near." So he rode into Jerusalem with confidence! He entered this week as a Conquering Hero whom nobody understood.
Is this not the way of love, of self-giving, of refusing to care for his own welfare because he cares so deeply for the welfare of others? This is the path upon which Jesus sets himself on this day known both as Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday, for they are combined into one, seeing the end from its beginning even while the day is the beginning of the end.
Paul makes clear in the words prior to and including today's Second Lesson that this total self-giving, this absolute refusal to regard his own welfare as primary so that the welfare of the world might be served through the cross to which his face was now "set like a flint," is to have an echo throughout the ages. "So if there is any encouragement in Christ . . . complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus . . . " and then he continues with the description of Christ as the man of the cross who "made himself nothing" in order to make something of all of us. (Philippians 2:1-5 ESV) We find in his self-giving our hope and our salvation as a free gift so beyond measure that we can neither name nor number it.
We find in his self-giving more than an example. He is also the source of the vigor necessary to give our very selves away to the guidance and control of him whom we call Savior and Lord. If we take this week seriously at all, we will find it an occasion to re-dedicate our lives to living after the same fashion that Jesus lived - a giving over of our old selves to the death of the "old Adam," as that "resident evil" is named, and to the new life of Christ to which we have been joined in our baptism.
THE END OF THE END
We know, of course, that Christ's death is itself the end of death's power over us, for he who died was not held in the grave. His resurrection is the beginning of life as God intended it from the beginning. In our baptism we were caught up into that death of death and raised to that life of all true living. We celebrate that totality of his work in the eating and drinking that first enlightened the eyes of the two men at Emmaus. It serves as the food for our journey, as the manna from heaven in a fashion after that manna which preserved Israel for its forty year journey in the wilderness.
These things we know already now as we enter into the tensions and distresses of this week. They will never be far from our minds and hearts.
They dare not, however, distract us from watching ever so carefully how the events of this day become a mainspring from which all the events yet to follow will come. For in following them through this week we will discover the end to which our Lord came . . . and the end to which he would lead us as we go to his suffering and death with him . . . and to his resurrection in which a life so abundant that it is beyond telling is to be found!
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.