Palm Sunday--2022
Palm Sunday—2022
Matthew 21:1-11
After three years of traveling across the countryside, crossing back and forth across the lake, healing and teaching and preaching, it comes down to this. This is what we’ve come to know as Palm Sunday…
The first thing to say is that this was a pre-meditated event. Jesus sends two of his disciples into Bethphage with very specific instructions. They are to go to the village and look for a donkey who will be tethered there, along with her colt. They are to untie the donkey and her colt and bring them back to Jesus. If anyone asks what they’re doing, they are to answer, “The master needs them.” The disciples do as they are told and things unfold exactly as Jesus said they would. Someone does ask what they are doing. They give the “secret” answer. No more questions are asked.
Let’s pause and point out a few things. First, in the most rare of moments, for once, the disciples do exactly what Jesus tells them to do. Literally, this almost never happens! These two disciples are having their best day ever as disciples! If only, every now and then, we could do the same!
Second, sometimes, when you do exactly what you are being called to do, you will find yourself in awkward circumstances, doing things you otherwise would not do. The disciples look for all the world like they are stealing a donkey and a colt here. If there wasn’t a plan, the answer, “The master told us to do this” wouldn’t carry a lot of weight! Sooner or later, you will spend a little “awkward” time, too. You wade straight into one sticky situation or another because you’re pretty sure that’s the plan, that’s where you’re needed. So, your friend in the hospital wants a pizza and, well, it’s definitely after visiting hours. When someone asks, you say, “I’m just trying to help here” or “Well…to tell you the truth, I’m kind of on a “mission from God”…sort of…let me explain.” Sometimes people don’t understand. Occasionally, the “gatekeeper” looks you in the eye and say, “I’m with you. I get it. Carry on…”
Third, the plan, in the case of Palm Sunday, seems to be for the purpose of symbolism, the kind of symbolism which might have spoken deeply to the crowds. Centuries earlier, there had been a prophecy about the king arriving on a colt and on a donkey. The force of that symbolism would have been a message of humility. Kings didn’t ride donkeys. Kings definitely did not ride a donkey’s colt that had never been ridden before and would have been a nightmare to control. King’s rode warhorses, draped in armor. Up to this point, Jesus had walked every step of the way—the most humble way to travel around. To arrive in Jerusalem on these humble animals would have been a long, slow reminder of who leaders were meant to be and a big, giant poke in the eye to those who wielded power with no humility at all. (This is the pope, arriving, not in the fancy pope mobile but in a little tiny Fiat, if you remember that day!)
Finally, let’s recognize this: whoever gave up their donkey and their colt was likely not a rich guy. This donkey was probably the most valuable thing that person owned and the colt would have been his retirement plan. Maybe he got the donkey and the colt back. We don’t know. What we know is that he was willing to put his well-being on the line of the sake of the day’s plan. He shared what he had. Though we don’t know his name and he doesn’t figure into the rest of the day, Palm Sunday wouldn’t have happened without him. (This makes me think of my good friend, Bill Bruce, and any number of folks like him in our little church, who humbly support what we’re trying to do while working diligently to stay out of the spotlight. Everyone is just sharing what they have to try to see to it that what needs to happen next gets done.)
After the disciples did exactly what Jesus asked them to do (I think Jesus did a double take on that. "What?”), Jesus mounts the donkey…or mounts the colt…or mounts them both at the same time. I’ve looked at that moment in Matthew for a long time and, honestly, it’s pretty unclear. (Maybe that’s the challenge of doing highly symbolic things. Sooner or later, you’ve got to jump on one or the other and just get on with the ride. Maybe you look at whoever’s around and say, “Oh well…you get the drift, right?)
I think what’s more important about this moment with the donkey and colt is what happens just before Jesus mounts one or the other. People start to shed their cloaks. This is where the symbolism gets very interesting. I think that once the donkey and colt have arrived, the premeditated part of Palm Sunday is over and the spontaneous part of the day begins. As we’ve noticed for weeks, every time we see a crowd around Jesus in the gospels, the crowd always has a life of its own. Sometimes the crowd is closing in on Jesus, demanding that their needs be met. Sometimes, the crowd is hanging on Jesus’ every word. Sometimes, the crowd is indifferent or even hostile. The crowd is not easily controlled. On this day, spontaneously, people begin shedding their cloaks for Jesus to sit on while he’s riding. Then, the “shedding” continues until the road itself is covered in cloaks.
Why does this matter? I’m going to give you two ways to think about this, both of which are meaningful. First, think of what’s happening as Jesus getting the red carpet treatment. The cloaks that rest upon the back of the donkey and the colt will literally ease the pain of Jesus’ ride. (If you’ve even ridden a donkey, you know just how real this relief would be! Anything to soften that ride would have been welcome!) When the cloaks begin to cover the road, they would have been easing another part of the challenge of that day. Roads were dusty paths back then. Those cloaks would have settled the dust, the kind of dust which would have caused an irritated eye to shed a tear or two.
We know the rest of this story! There is so much pain ahead of Jesus, pain far worse than riding a donkey or dust in the eye. Blood will be shed. Tears will be shed. All of those things will happen but…not today. Today, the crowd is going out of their way to see to Jesus’ comfort, to ease his pain. Like the disciples getting things exactly right earlier in picking up the donkeys, this is the crowd’s best day. They are acting with compassion.
Beyond that, here is a second thing to realize, something which I think would have meant even more to Jesus. What are people doing when they shed their cloaks? The biggest sign of one’s status was the cloak you wore. How fancy was its design? How expensive were its colors? All it took was one look and everyone knew where you stood in the pecking order. Unless…unless you shed your cloak. Everyone wore the same undergarments. Without the cloaks, everyone was the same. The playing field was leveled.
In a highly symbolized but spontaneous way, people are rejecting the hierarchy, itself, in this moment. For the man who taught people to humble themselves and to love their neighbors and to share whatever they had with those who had less, this vision had to make Jesus wonder, at some level, “Wow…maybe they were listening after all!” It had to feel like the kingdom of God was right there among them—which it was!
Other people among the crowd cut branches from the palm trees and waved them and threw them to the ground. (They literally put the “palm” in Palm Sunday!). What’s up with this? Again, there is that welcoming piece to the gesture. Less dust. More comfort. However, I think this was another spontaneous, but highly symbolic act. Let me explain…
At Passover, everyone who was anyone made their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. For a week, the biggest city’s population nearly doubled. There was a lot of money to be made by the local businesses and the moneychangers at the Temple. At the same time, there were a lot of fears among the authorities. They were afraid that the religious celebration would lead to a political revolution. And all it would take was a whiff of that happening to get the Roman occupiers out of sorts.
The Roman occupiers’ solution to this was to demonstrate their military power to the crowds. Groups of soldiers would parade through the streets, some on warhorses, some on foot, all armed to the teeth. As they made their way through town, they would often harass individuals, ordering them to do menial tasks or to offer up praise to Caesar. Sometimes, though, they would simply pick out an individual and introduce them, more or less lightly, to the sharp end of a spear. The palm fronds would have been as close to a spear as anything available to the average person. (Every kid who has ever been to Palm Sunday services has used their palm frond as a spear!). So, the crowd takes up “arms” and then lays down their “arms.” The man who told the crowds, “Blessed are the peacemakers” inspires the crowd to become peacemakers for a moment.
Rather than yelling, “Hail Caesar!”at the command of the Roman guards, the crowd spontaneously yells out some very different things. They yell, “Hosanna!”which literally means, “Save us!” For some, that might well have had a political agenda attached, “Save us from the Romans.” For others, the agenda might have simply been for the kind of healing they had heard he had accomplished. They yelled that he was the “Son of David”which would have been dangerously close to actually declaring that he was the next king, if not the Messiah, himself. While the Romans proclaimed that Caesar was God, the crowd declared that Jesus was the one who was coming in God’s name. Their eyes were on the Kingdom of Heaven. These folks were making serious noise, the kind of noise that would get the attention of all the wrong people.
In fact, these people made so much noise that by the time that Jesus and the crowd reached the gates of Jerusalem, the whole town was rattled. Everyone was unnerved. “Who is this man? What is this that is going on here?” The tension was palpable. The business owners worried that a disturbance might cut into their profits. They had to have a big week! The temple leaders were worried that the crowd might inspire people to seek healing from this man, Jesus, rather than through the simple but always profitable process of buying a sacrificial lamb or two at the temple and making a little sacrifice. “This is our turf! What’s he doing here?” Everyone must have worried at least a little bit about the Romans, too. You didn’t have to be a prophet to know that the guards around town were just a taste of the pain that would rain down on Jerusalem and the rest of the nation if things really got stirred up. This whole “Jesus of Nazareth” thing might just be getting out of hand…
Then, in an instant, the disciples’ best day, the crowd’s best day, maybe even the best day of Jesus’ ministry, comes to a crashing halt. As the question, “Who is this man?” is still ringing in the air, the crowd answers: “This is the prophet, Jesus!” “No…no…it’s not!” For as many things as the crowd got right on that day, when it comes to the most important question, they are wrong. This is not a prophet. This is the Christ. This is the messiah. This is God’s son.
From this point on, the suffering began and everything and everyone unraveled.