From Humiliation For Celebration (2)

The Christ Who Is In Full Control

3.24.24 [Mark 11:1-11] River of Life (Palm Sunday)

Winning is a lot of fun. It doesn’t matter if it’s bingo, card games, or a silly argument—it’s a rush to be on the winning side of anything. And this is the season for winning. Every March, millions of brackets are filled out in office pools and among friends and family. Everyone has the same goal: to win. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know a single player on the team. It doesn’t matter if can’t find the school you picked on a map. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the school’s mascot or can’t even pronounce the school’s name correctly. You want to win.

When you fill out your bracket, it’s a zero-sum game. It doesn’t matter if the team you picked put up a good fight. It doesn’t matter if the calls didn’t go your way or the star player got hurt. Either you’re right or you’re wrong. Either you win, or you lose. And nobody likes to lose. We all want to win. Maybe that’s why they call it March Madness.

But the desire to win doesn’t disappear after the final net has been cut down. Our enthusiasm, our infatuation, and our madness with victory and success are not created by a college basketball tournament. It’s merely brought to the surface. It’s been there the whole time. None of us like to lose. We all want to win. As much as we possibly can.

And that desire—to triumph, to be connected with a winner, to be thought of as successful—transforms the way we think of Jesus and his kingdom today just as it did to the people of Jesus’ day.

The scene in Mark 11 is familiar and festive: Jesus approaches the big city with a clamor. Everything seems to be falling into place. Finally. The colt is brought with little friction. The disciples aren’t arguing about which of them is the greatest. They know it’s Jesus. And so do the people. They spread their cloaks and palm branches on the road before him. Maybe most importantly, they shout words of praise. Biblical words from Psalm 118. (Mk.11:9-10) Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven! This is the Victorious Messiah the people of Israel had been waiting for.

After quite some time of struggles, resistance, tricky questions, and dissenters, the people finally seem to get it. They’re not rushing to Jesus to see some miracles. They’re not crowding around him so that he would heal their sick. They’re not arguing with him or demanding he prove that he really has come from God. They’re praising him. Hosanna! (Ps. 118:25-26) Lord, save us. Lord, grant us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

But not all their words are from the Word of God. As the crowd shouts their praises they also tip their hand. (Mk.11:9-10) Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.

The Palm Sunday crowd wanted to roll back the clock, and return to the glory they had when David sat on the throne. The saving they are looking for is not primarily spiritual. The success they have their sights set on is far more political, far more temporal, far less than what they really needed.

Sometimes, that’s what we really want, too, isn’t it? We want to be citizens of a nation where the Church and Christianity is politically respected—maybe even feared. We want to live in a community where Judeo-Christian ethics are honored, modeled, and aimed at. We want our friends to throw bouquets at Jesus’ feet—metaphorically speaking—when they consider how they want to live their lives and raise their kids. We want our family to admire and applaud our Jesus, as well.

And we also want to be winners. Because, after all, we are with him, too. We want to be praised because we are one of those who fervently follow after him. We want to be celebrated at work or in our communities when we live as he has called us to. When we express the truth, we want people to thank us, to respect us, and even speak well of us when we’re not around. We want people to sing our praises and ask if they can come with us when we tell them all our Sunday mornings are spoken for. We want a pat on the back every time we have the audacity to openly confess our sins. We want people to rave about us for having the love and the courage to rebuke them when they’ve strayed from God. We would love to live in a world like that.

We want to live in a world where everybody listens to, admires, and mimics Jesus. If we were in control of how things work in this world that’s how it would work. We want Jesus—and us!—to look and feel like winners in the eyes of this world.

But we’re not. We do not live in a world where everyone loves Jesus. We do not live in a world where the ways of God are observed and obeyed. We do not live in a world where the people of God are admired and applauded. We do not live in a world where everyone loves Jesus.

It sounds nice. But Jesus shows us that even if that were the case, it wouldn’t be sufficient. People can honor God and his Son with their lips and still have hearts that are far from him, deceitful beyond cure.

But we do live in a world that Jesus still loves. The crowd on Palm Sunday celebrated Jesus because they hoped that he was about to usher in a political and national golden age. But that’s not why Jesus came. He came to purchase and win us from all sin, from death, and the power of the devil with something more precious than silver or gold. He redeemed us with his holy, innocent blood. He shed his blood to secure for us what the blood of bulls and male lambs in their prime could never sniff—our salvation.

In pursuing and securing our salvation, Jesus was in control every step of the way. When God says he will do something, it happens exactly the way he says it will. The God of all power and wisdom is always in complete control. Even when it doesn’t look that way.

The God of all power and wisdom is in complete control, even when the chief priests and the teachers of the Law have no interest in the Messiah they claimed to be looking for. Even when the Roman Governor has no interest in the truth, justice, or peace he was appointed to uphold.

The God of all power and wisdom is in complete control, even when the disciples have betrayed him, denied him, and abandoned him.

The God of all power and wisdom is in complete control, even when the world seems to be kicking him when he’s down. The God of all power and wisdom is in complete control, even when the Devil seems to smiling and laughing.

The God of all power and wisdom is in complete control, even when the Son of God is so weak he cannot carry his own cross another step. The God of all power and wisdom is in complete control, even as the Son cries out for his Father and receives no response. Our God is very much in control.

And he wins. As great as this moment is, with the clamoring crowd and the cloaks spread out in the road and the branches cut down, all of it is surpassed by everything that happens after this. Palm Sunday isn’t the pinnacle. This parade couldn’t change what has always been really wrong with our world. Only the suffering, the death, the burial, and of course the resurrection of Jesus could do that. And he has. And he has made us winners too. By God’s grace and power, we have something better than a perfect bracket. By grace through faith, we have been credited with Christ’s perfect record, his righteousness. We have our names written in the book of life.

By God’s grace and power, we are led around as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession. He uses us to (2 Cor. 2:14) spread the aroma of the knowledge of Jesus everywhere. We are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. (Mk. 11:9-10) Hosanna! (Ps. 118:25-26) Lord save us! Lord, grant us success in this task. Bless us who come in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven!