Palm Sunday

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Today is one of my favorite Sundays of the year. I love seeing the kids walk around the sanctuary carrying their palm branches. There is a certain amount of energy and excitement kids bring to the day.

It is also a story form the bible most of us have heard many times before. Which means, we may be reading into our text for the day what we remember of this story from Sunday school. All of the gospels tell us of this day, but they all give a little but different emphasis, so we need to work hard to see what Luke is actually saying versus what we think he is saying. To do that work, we all need the help of the Spirit, so let’s pray for God’s blessing on the reading of his word. LE us pray:

Lord God, you have declared that your kingdom is among us. Open our eyes to see it, our ears to hear it, our hearts to hold it, our hands to serve it. This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Luke 19:28–44 NIV

After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ” Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They replied, “The Lord needs it.” They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

L: This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

P: Praise to you, O Christ!

Walking with Jesus

As our story begins, Jesus is on his way from Jericho up to Jerusalem. Just before our text is his famous encounter with Zacchaeus who saw Jesus fro the sycamore tree. Jesus has shared a meal with Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus has seen the error of his ways and now Jesus is back on the road to Jerusalem.

If we walked with Jesus is Galilee, near his home in Capernaum, we would enjoy some beautiful rolling hills with farms scattered all around. While not as green as Michigan, it is good farm land and filled with colors from the crops and trees. But in the south, by Jericho and, perhaps especially, on the road to Jerusalem from Jericho, you are in the desert. Receiving less rain in a year than the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

PICTURE

Even today, you can see ruins of the Roman road from Jericho to Jerusalem. It is an 18 mile, dry, hard walk. You climb a little over a half mile in elevation over the 18 miles with little shade and only the water you brought with you. It takes about 8 hours to make the walk.

PICTURE

As you climb over the ridge fo the Mount of Olives you are hot, tired, and plenty dusty. But from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem it is all down hill. There is excitement and energy as you can see your destination and know the journey is almost over.

But even more than the excitement of the journey being over, for Jesus and his disciples, the party is about to begin! They are coking to Jersualem as Passover is about to begin. The biggest Jewish celebration of the year.

Hope of the Disciples

Before they begin the descent, Jesus sends two disciples ahead to get him a donkey to ride into Jerusalem. While we may not immediately see the connection. his disciples would have known immediately.

500 years before, the prophet Zechariah had spoken of this day when he said:

Zechariah 9:9 NIV

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Jesus is entering on a donkey, not a warhorse, because the victory had already been won, there was no battle he needed to wage, he already ruled over all. Jesus is telling the whole world he is the Messiah the people have been waiting for his.

His disciples catch the meaning and they start to law their cloaks along the road and singing Psalm 118, one of the Psalms pilgrims would often sing as they entered Jerusalem. It is a Psalm all about how God has sent the one who has delivered the people from their captivity and set them free.

We cannot miss this hope of the disciples. They are longing for victory and conquest, for freedom and victory. They put their hopes and dreams on Jesus, but they do not always pay attention to Jesus’ hopes and dreams.

Isn’t that like us today, too? We come to God with our wish lists and goals for life. Help me have a good marriage. Keep my kids safe. Help my savings last long enough in retirement. Protect me from cancer. Help me get this job. And so. And, none of those things are bad things to desire or want. Those are all things I want to.

The disciples, too, come to Jesus and project onto him all their hopes and fears and they struggle to actually listen to Jesus. Jesus has been busy for 10 chapters preparing them, telling them he was going to die in Jerusalem, and they are entering Jerusalem like it is going to be a big party and victory lap for Jesus.

I wonder if that can often be true of us. Do we read into scripture what we want to see? Do we focus only on the passages and stories that affirm what we already think? Do we emphasize those passages that promise us what we want all while ignoring all God tells us about what he wants for this world he loves that is broken and marred by sin?

We love passages that tell us we can do all things through him who strengthens us and how God has plans to bless and not harm us. We love them so much we have often pulled them out of context and completely changed their meaning. But how often do we look to passages like Matthew 25 for motivation and a picture of what the good life looks like?

If you don’t remember Matthew 25, in that chapter, Jesus describes the day of judgment and how he will separate those who followed God from those who did not. In the story, Jesus paints a picture of the kind of life that he desires for us. It is one where we are feeding hungry people, clothing naked people, getting thirsty people water, and standing with and supporting those oppressed by the world. Is this what we are all seeking together?

I am often like the disciples, following Jesus in the hopes he will give me the life i want rather than seeking the world he longs to bring into being.

Worry of the Pharisees

Alongside the disciples are a whole bunch of Pharisees also coming to celebrate passover. We are often too hard on the Pharisees. Jesus would have been considered pharisee and so would each of the disciples.

But these Pharisees are not busy praising God for all the miracles of Jesus’ ministry. They are not worried theologically. There is nothing theologically wrong with proclaiming you think someone is the Messiah. Lots of people thought lots of other people might be the messiah over the years. They are not upset at the song they are singing. It is one all the pilgrims would be singing as they came toward Jerusalem. So what are they upset about?

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The Grief of Jesus

When we celebrate Palm Sunday it is the only happy point in Lent. The rest of this season is all about our sin, our mortality, and our need for Jesus. The sermons tend to be a little more challenging. Often, the worship is a little more somber. It is a serious time. But Palm Sunday we get to wave branches and everything seems pretty happy and joyous in the story we tell.

But Luke does something interesting in the telling of Palm Sunday or the triumphal entry as it is often called. Luke doesn’t even include the Palm branches, this sign of Jewish pride and celebration. There are no palm branches, just some coats thrown on the ground in front of Jesus.

And even those coats are not what they may first seem in the story. We may imagine hundreds or thousands of coats being thrown at the feet of Jesus, but Luke doesn’t describe it that way. He says people spread their cloaks on the ground, but there is no sense of the size of the crowd. It may very well have only been the disciples throwing their coats before Jesus. not just the 12, but maybe the 70 or so who often traveled with Jesus. The image is not a big crowd, but a small one. And even in the crowd, there are Pharisees calling the whole business into question.

And then the story ends with Jesus in tears for the city. This is a triumphal entry, perhaps, but Jesus knows the city will not recognize his kingship. The city will not follow him. He will be rejected. Beaten. And killed. They won’t turn to God. And so instead, Jesus prophesies that Jerusalem will be destroyed. Big ramparts will be built against its walls to the Roman army can come storming in. The big stones that make up its walls and the temple mount will be torn down. The city will be brought to ruins.

Even now, 2,000 years later, you can still see at the base of the temple mount, hundreds and hundreds of huge stones the Romans tore off the walls. It still has not been rebuilt. And Jesus weeps.

In Luke, this story blends together the joy of the disciples with the sad reality that many people hear of Jesus and refuse to follow. The Pharisees were in the crowd, which means even if they had not seen the miracles, they were hearing testimonies about the miracles of Jesus. The people of Jerusalem saw Jesus in the flesh. They heard him teach. And the refused to believe. And Jesus weeps because he knows what their unbelief will cost.

We all know people who have had every opportunity to believe and yet have walked away from God. They have grown up in church and heard all the stories. They have been baptized and prayed over and loved for years. And yet, they have turned away from Jesus.

And here, let me be clear. There are many people who have been deeply wounded by church or have become disillusioned with Christians, but still deeply love Jesus. I am not talking about these people.

But there are those who have heard and have not believed. Do not miss this. Jesus is not angry with them. He grieves for them. He weeps because he loves those who reject him. He weeps because he knows what that decision to reject jesus will cost them.

Which leads me to my first question for you today: do you weep for those who reject Jesus? It is so easy in our culture that specialized in judging and canceling and mocking to miss how Jesus responds to those who reject them. He is not angry. It is not celebrating their judgment. He weeps. Do we weep for those who have rejected God?