Palm Sunday--2021
Palm Sunday, 2021
Luke 19:28-44
So, I want to raise the bar a bit today. I want to challenge us to hear a familiar story—Palm Sunday—with a twist. First, we’ll review the story. Then, we’ll build the context in which Luke was writing and his audience was listening. I hope that in the process, you’ll come to think about Palm Sunday in a new way.
Let’s start here…Some version of Palm Sunday is in all four Gospels which means that when someone asks us about Palm Sunday, it is almost guaranteed that we will tell a hybrid version of the story that includes snippets from all four versions. Did Jesus ride a young horse or a young donkey or—believe it or not—both, however that works? You can find each of those options in the gospels. Want another variation? The story that I read to you this morning—Luke’s version of Palm Sunday—has no palms. Seriously, where did the palms go? I love the palms…
Rather than try to cover all the accounts of this day, let’s stick with Luke this morning. For Luke, Jerusalem is the center of the universe! Mary and Joseph and the baby visit Jerusalem after Jesus’ birth. Jesus wanders off and visits the temple at age 12. As I pointed out a couple of months ago, that visit to the temple as a boy, when he is finally found talking to the authorities, is a giant foreshadowing of what we’ve come to know as Holy Week. It’s Passover. Jesus and his friends and their families parade to the city together. Jesus is lost and then, after three days, he’s found again. Anyone who knew the story of what happened to Jesus would have heard this story and said, “Wow…this story was unfolding years ago, even when he was a young boy.”
Jesus’ ministry starts years later far from Jerusalem at the River Jordan with John the Baptist and grows even more remote in his days in the wilderness. However, from the day that he walked out of the wilderness, two things are true: he’s going to care about and teach and preach to growing crowds of people and every day, he’s getting closer to Jerusalem. As listeners, we know that’s where he’s going. We know what will unfold. In fact, Jesus tells his disciples three different times what will happen there: he’s going to be arrested and tried and suffer and die and then he will rise again.
All of this culminates on Palm Sunday. Jesus sends his disciples into a village to pick up a colt that has never been ridden. He gives them instructions on what to say if they are questioned about taking the animal. When they say the words that he told them to say, “Tell them, ‘The master needs it,’” they are not questioned. All of this suggests that there was a pre-ordained plan, that Palm Sunday was no accident. It also would have invoked the remembrance of the prophet, Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” What was about to happen would have been exactly what had been predicted to happen centuries before: the Messiah is humble and he’s riding on a donkey.
Jesus is helped onto the donkey and rides on to Jerusalem. Again, there are no palms in this story. Instead, there are cloaks and people are shedding them, freely. They put their cloaks on the donkey to make Jesus’ ride more comfortable. They throw their cloaks down on the road, a sort of “red carpet” welcome for Jesus. Of course, as I’ve suggested in years past, we don’t really realize the full force of what this cloak shedding means until we realize that the cloak that a person wore was a status symbol. The fancier the cloak, the richer the person was inside it. Your cloak was a sign of your power and place in society.
Think of this this way. The people’s response to a Messiah who humbled himself and rode a donkey (as opposed to a military leader who would be in armor and riding a huge warhorse) was to humble themselves. The followers of this humble man became humble people. For one shining moment, they didn’t care about status. For a moment, they didn’t care about power. They were moved instead to live their faith. They lived it by rejecting the worst of what society had taught them and chose instead to care about what Jesus was living and teaching.
In that very instant, the people cry out. They don’t whisper. They don’t speak in a polite voice. They don’t pause frequently to find the right words. No…the words pour out of them and the words are words of praise to God: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory to the highest heaven!” Hold it…do you hear what’s missing? In addition to expecting to see palms on Palm Sunday, we also expect to hear a “Hosannah!” or a “Hallelujah!” right? Instead, in Luke’s version, the crowds proclaim that Jesus is the king—the messiah—and as they do, they sound a lot like the multitude of angles who had proclaimed his birth thirty-three years before. Now, though, the chorus of angels has given way to a faithful choir of human beings— at least for a bittersweet moment.
At which point, the authorities have seen just about enough. They’ve had it with Jesus of Nazareth. It was one thing when he was just another country bumpkin, healing and preaching his way through the “sticks.” Now, Jesus is making quite a ruckus at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Even worse, the crowds are being so loud. “Jesus…we’ve tried to warn you. The Romans are watching, you know. Can’t you get your people to pipe down?” And in a moment that makes every attentive reader of Luke smile, Jesus, the man who was tempted to turn stones into bread in the wilderness, points out that if the people were silent, the stones would turn into screaming disciples.
Of all the moments in the Gospel, I think this one had to be the moment when Jesus got to see the people finally get things right. Certainly, he was savvy enough and loved people enough to know that this wouldn’t last. Things were about to get scary. People who are afraid are rarely people at their best. Still, though, just to see those people laying down those cloaks and crying out for all they were worth had to be a sight for sore eyes and balm for a broken heart.
All of which leads to the extra few verses that we read this morning. Almost as soon as Jerusalem comes into view, Jesus sees the city and begins weeping for it. What’s up with that? Now, we’re going to think about context…
So…we hear the story of Palm Sunday and think about connections to our own lives—times when our faith requires us to face something difficult, even when we know what’s ahead will be hard. If we are thinking in the bigger picture, we make some of the connections like we have this morning to Old Testament prophecies and to the nuances of the Gospels. We understand what we are hearing in terms of the larger story of God’s relationship with human beings. What most of us probably won’t do, though, is put this story in a historical context. That’s where I want us to go.
Imagine if I told you a story about someone years ago who paused in the middle of whatever else was going on and…stood before the Twin Towers and wept. Now, imagine that the day when they were standing there, weeping, was September 11th, 1971. Then, imagine that that person went on to speak about the way the towers would fall, leaving no stone unturned. Imagine that you are hearing about this moment and it is ten years after 9/11. The pain and loss are still fresh. The memories are instantly there…
Now, open yourselves to the historical experience that people would have gone through roughly ten years before reading the gospel of Luke. In 66 A. D., thirty-three years after Jesus died, a series of events happened that became known as the first Jewish revolt. The people who had long hated the Roman occupiers and their oppressive taxes and imperialism rose up against the Romans. They quickly expelled the Romans from Jerusalem and formed a revolutionary government of their own. Emperor Nero sent Vespasian to confront these rebels, whom he successfully pushed back into Jerusalem. Not long after that, Vespasain became the emperor. (Hang with me, now…)
In 70 A.D., Titus was sent by Rome to besiege Jerusalem. When was he sent? He was sent at Passover. Titus allowed all of the pilgrims who were heading to Jerusalem for the festival to pass right through his siege line and then…he refused to let them leave. In this way, he bloated the city’s population and overburdened their food and water supplies. The Romans encircled Jerusalem and built a wall around the whole city, completely cutting off food and water supplies. Then, they sat back and watched the city slowly die. In August, the troops entered the city and massacred what remained of the population. They systematically destroyed the city, tearing it apart as an example to the world of what happens when you rebel against Rome and as an example of worldly power at its worst.
Three more things are worth knowing. First, the only wall left standing in the town was the west wall of the temple, what is to this day known as the “Wailing Wall.” Second, though everything else fell in 70 A.D., the people fighting on the peak at Masada would hold out for three years longer, and stories are told to this day about their courage. Finally, when people told this horrible story, they pointed to the Zealots, a radical group of Jewish nationalists, as the one’s who betrayed the fight against Rome. Remember, Judas was a Zealot, a generation earlier.
Jesus weeps when he sees the city, just like Luke’s audience would have wept when they remembered it. Trauma lives on. Some things you don’t forget. At the heart of what Jesus says, though, is this: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” The authorities believed that peace would come from appeasing Rome. Others wanted Jesus to lead the revolution. Jesus isn’t opting for either political option. Peace comes, for Jesus, when people humble themselves, when they live what they believe, when they give God the glory, when they stop worshiping any worldly authority at all. Imagine how that message resonated with a whole nation of broken hearted survivors!
Having seen the terrible things that powerful people will do to get power and hold onto power or, sometimes, just to make a point, Jesus shows up at the most powerful place in his world. He doesn’t wield a sword or lead a powerful army. This is why that Zealot, Judas, betrayed him. Jesus does not compromise to keep the Romans happy. This is why those who were in cahoots with Rome did everything they could to shut him down. Jesus shows up.
Then, Jesus does what he can to show the world, once and for all, what real power is: the power to love rather than hate; the power to suffer and absorb pain rather than to just keep passing that pain on; the power to face and overcome even the fear of death, itself. Worldly power might have its day. Power hungry leaders might even look like winners for while. However, in the end, plain and simple, love wins. First, though, you have to join the parade. You have to shed your cloak and cry out for all you’re worth: “Peace in heaven and glory to the highest heaven!”