The premise of this sermon begins with the fact that the service was "backwards" for April Fools Day. We began with a benediction, flowed to communion, back through the service, concluding with confession.
Mark 11:1-10
How
do I give a sermon backwards or upside down? Do I begin with the point I would
close with and close with a pointed story? I’m not sure. On the best days, the
Spirit works through the sermon to give us the food for thought and the faith
that brings us to the table to receive, and commune with, the presence of
Christ. Since we communed first today, I’m trusting that the communion that is
in us and among us… is also opening us up to a new way of looking at this holy
Sunday… Palm Sunday.
Today’s
gospel lesson is usually called the “Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem”. What
makes it triumphant?
-
The people greeting Jesus?
-
Like a parade?
-
Treating him like a king?
The crowd is shouting, “Hosanna! Hosanna!” What does
that mean? Hosanna is actually a very
April Fools kind of cry. It sounds happy, but it isn’t. It doesn’t mean “Hooray” or “Cheers” or
anything we could imagine yelling in a parade. Hosanna, in both Hebrew and the equivalent Greek, means “help us”
or “save us”. So people are waving leafy branches and calling for Jesus to help
and save them. They are expecting salvation from Roman oppression, from
physical ailments, from the unbalanced temple system of the time.
Sometimes when we see pictures of Jesus riding on
the colt, he looks like he has indigestion. It’s a strange look for someone who
is receiving a parade in his honor, but it’s not so strange if we think about
the message Jesus has been preaching and the upside and backwards expectations
people have of him.
Speaking
of the colt, why do you think Jesus’ parade vehicle was a “colt that had never
been ridden”? That probably wasn’t the smoothest ride he could have found. Many
people point to a verse from the prophet Zechariah, “Rejoice
greatly, Daughter Zion. Sing
aloud, Daughter Jerusalem. Look, your king will come to you. He is righteous
and victorious. He is humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the offspring of
a donkey.” (Zech. 9:9) Jesus knew his Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures, and he
could have been fulfilling this.
Yet,
there’s something a little further back that might also be a factor and goes
hand-in-hand with the understanding of Jesus as a very different kind of king. When
Solomon was crowned king, he rode to his anointing on his father David’s mule. (1
Kings 1:38-39) This symbolized Solomon’s succession to his father’s throne.
Very frequently when new kings take over, they do so by re-fitting or
re-claiming the symbols, possessions, wives, and residences of their
predecessors- as if to clearly establish who is king now and who is not. People
are greeting Jesus as a king in the line of David, but is he? Is it possible to
be in the family of David, but to be a king in an entirely different way?
Jesus
rides on… a colt that has never had a rider. He’s coming into a kingship that
has no predecessor. What did we sing this morning: “His is no earthly kingdom,
he comes from heaven above. His rule is peace and freedom, and justice, truth,
and love.” (Prepare the Royal Highway)
By riding a colt with no previous rider, Jesus is revealing, perhaps too
subtly, that what he brings is very different from what previous rulers have
offered.
Yet
the crowds miss that. Most of the disciples don’t understand it. They’re too busy
calling for salvation and they know exactly what they want that to look like.
They
know exactly what they want salvation to look like.
April
fools.
This
is one of the challenges of Holy Week- letting go of what we want salvation to
be and allowing ourselves to be open to what it is. On Wednesday night, a few
of us talked about the favorite moments of the week. It came up that Easter is
supposed to help us not to be afraid of death. Someone responded, “I’m not
afraid of death. It’s the dying part that I don’t like.”
That’s
so true for most of us. It’s the dying that we’re afraid of. And Holy Week has
a lot of dying. The recollection of betrayal and false accusation and
crucifixion causes us to tremble, but the dying begins here- with the palms in
our hands. Dying well takes honesty. How honest are we ready to be?
Are
we prepared to be honest with the emotions we feel this week? The discomfort at
being touched? The uncertainty at the story of the crucifixion? The sense of
being overwhelmed or underwhelmed by a story that’s been told many times? Are
we will to be honest that Jesus isn’t the king we’re expecting and sometimes we
don’t like that?
Are
we prepared to die to the notion that our goodness, our right behavior, can
save us or make us right with God? Are we prepared to be honest that we don’t
always look for Jesus in other people and we do not always let people see Jesus
in us? In this
Holy Week, are we prepared to die, within ourselves and in our actions, to our
prejudices, to our blind spots, to our fears, to our insecurities? Are we
prepared to crucify injustice, anger, judgment, and mistrust? Are
we prepared to cry, “Hosanna to the King
of Kings”, and mean it? To mean, “Save us, Jesus, save us from ourselves,
from our possessions, from our efforts to control.”
Something
must die to make way for rebirth. And the dying is scary. But this week is all
about dying… in particular, dying so that we might live
Who
can help us with that? To whom shall we cry, “Hosanna! Save us!”?
The Jesus who came to us at the table… the
Jesus whose death brings the possibility of resurrection… and resurrection
brings the promise of new life.
Are
you ready for Holy Week? Are you ready to remember? Can you be open to the
dying that makes way for new life? Are we prepared to ponder the different kind
of king that Jesus is and the different kind of life to which we are called… or
will we hold back… hold back and have the joke be on us?
Jesus,
you are king forever. We would never betray you or your call to us. April
Fools.
Hosanna. Hosanna.
Hosanna.
Amen.
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