What A Week! (A Sermon for Palm Sunday)

(Scriptures: Zechariah 9:9-12 Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 Philippians 2:5-11 Matthew 21:1-11)

This morning we begin the holiest week of the Christian calendar. During these past 37 days, we have stood with Jesus as he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, witnessed his evening meeting with Nicodemus – mentally I use the phrase “Nick at night” to remember the timing of Jesus’ initial meeting with Nicodemus - and his daytime meeting with the nameless woman at the well, marveled at his healing of the man born blind and his raising of Lazarus from the dead. Now we stand among the crowds shouting Hosanna as Jesus enters Jerusalem, slowly lurching along as he rides on a donkey that has never before been written.

The word “ambivalence” can be defined as the presence of two opposing ideas, attitudes, or emotions at the same time. Palm Sunday is a day in which our feelings may be ambivalent. This ambivalence is captured in the lectionary’s choices of readings for the day. One of these sets of readings – the texts from Psalms and Matthew that we heard earlier today – is focused on the triumphant entry. There is another set of texts – our reading from Philippians is one of them, along with an Isaiah text that we did not read this morning – which are focused on the events, not of Sunday, but of Thursday and Friday, the betrayal, the arrest in the garden, the trial and crucifixion. And so an increasing number of churches refer to today as “Palm/Passion Sunday”. It’s a day in which we hear the crowds cheering – but we’re not sure they know what they’re cheering for – as, at the end of our Matthew text, they refer to “the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee” – which is true, as far as it goes, but not a complete picture. Likewise, Jerusalem, the holy city, where God is thought to dwell within the Temple, built by Solomon, rebuilt by Zerubbabel on the return from Babylonian exile, greatly expanded and decorated by Herod….is also, in Jesus’ words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.” As the crowds cheer Jesus as a prophet, in the background we hear the Temple religious leaders muttering threats among themselves, and we know that Jesus will likewise suffer the fate faced by all prophets sent to Jerusalem. Matthew captures this sense of ambivalence, this sense of duality: two disciples are sent to get two animals, a donkey and a colt, for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem, both the holy city and the city that murders the prophets, to the cheers of crowds that both do and don’t know who Jesus is. Perhaps in that last bit of duality, Matthew wants us to remember Jesus’ dual nature – fully human, fully divine. And perhaps this is the most important dualism of all. As one both fully human and fully divine, Jesus is betrayed, arrested, sentenced, and crucified…and resurrected on the third day. As German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “If Christ is not fully human, how can he save us? If Christ is not fully divine, how can he save us?” Only one who is at the same time fully human – one who knows fully, in every cell and to the marrow of his bones, the full gamut of the human experience, the best and the worst life as a human has to offer, along with everything in-between, yet without sin – and one who is fully divine, of one being and of one essence with God the father – only that one can save us.

Everything Jesus has said and done has led him to this point, and in the days ahead he will go from the high of the triumphal entry to Jerusalem, to controversy and opposition from the religious establishment, to the anointing of his head by a nameless woman at Bethany, to a final Passover meal with his inner circle, the twelve, who promise to stand with him but within hours desert him, to betrayal by one of the twelve, arrest, trials before religious and civil authorities, and the painful, shameful, humiliating, literally god-awful death of the cross.. What a week Jesus has ahead of him! But we Christians know what radio commentator Paul Harvey called, “the rest of the story” – an empty tomb, the announcement of the angel, the appearance of the risen Christ to “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary,” the instructions for his disciples to go to Galilee, where the Risen Christ will meet them. And Jesus’ final commission to his disciples to tell others this “rest of the story” – Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” What a week! What a horrible week! What a glorious week! What a week!

The reformer Martin Luther coined the phrase “the theology of the cross” to remind his followers – and even though we at Emanuel are not Lutherans, we are among those who in a broader sense are informed by his theology – Luther coined the phrase “the theology of the cross” to remind us that, ultimately, the only way to truly understand Jesus – and to understand ourselves as disciples of Jesus – is through the cross. Luther used this phrase, “the theology of the cross” in contrast to what Luther called “the theology of glory” which wants to dwell on human wisdom and human achievement, which wants to minimize the importance of the crucifixion. But to ignore or even to minimize the crucifixion is more than a little like saying, “Well, aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” There is no Easter without Good Friday. There is no resurrection without crucifixion. As Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, God chose the foolish things in the world to shame the wise; chose the weak things in the world to shame the strong. In Jesus, the foolishness and weakness of God entered Jerusalem, lurched along into Jerusalem on a never-before-ridden donkey, his feet barely a few inches off the ground, and man’s strength and wisdom, man’s best efforts, as represented by the Temple hierarchy and the Roman empire, nailed Jesus to the cross.

Because we know “the rest of story” of the crucified and risen Christ, ultimately we know the outcome of our own. We are saved from aimlessness and sin, granted abundant life in this world and eternal life in the world to come, not by our own efforts, but because we know the rest of the story – saved by grace through faith in the crucified and Risen Christ.

And because we worship a Savior who has been through the worst that this life has to offer, whose path to Easter came through the pain and horror of Good Friday, we have the privilege of coming in prayer before a Savior who knows our pain, our sorrow, our anger, our frustration, to the depth of his being. As the letter to the Hebrews 4:15-16 states, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

All too often, we live in a Good Friday world, where money talks and might makes right, and faith, hope, and love are crushed to the ground. All too often, it is our hopes and dreams that are crushed to the ground, and it’s understandable to give into despair. But we know the rest of the story. In the words of a famous sermon by Tony Campolo…”It’s Friday…………but Sunday’s comin’. Amen.
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Christ the Lord is risen! Join the celebration at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org