Sermon Tone Analysis

Lord, please save us!

Palm Sunday often feels like a long-awaited day of celebration in the season of Lent.

We haven't reached Easter yet, but getting to wave palm branches and shout "Hosanna!"

still feels like a reprieve from the somber tones of fasting and repentance that have consumed the rest of the season.

Yet we forget while we shout "hosanna" that the word is actually a cry of desperation that means, "Lord, please save us!"

It is a plea for rescue.

The word used here is the same word that is used in Psalm 118:25-26 “25 Lord, please save us!

Lord, please let us succeed!

26 The one who enters in the Lord’s name is blessed; we bless all of you from the Lord’s house.”

The people in the crowds that day weren't singing songs of joy and worship in the ways that we typically think of those things; they were singing songs of liberation.

They were an oppressed people who needed a savior-and not in a metaphorical sense but in a very real sense-because they were suffering, and they longed to be saved.

Sometimes we ridicule the crowd from that day as though they missed the point of Jesus's coming.

We treat their expectation for a political revolutionary to come in and overthrow the current government as ludicrous.

Yet wouldn't anyone in their circumstances long for the same?

The truth is that, even though Jesus came in unexpected ways, peaceful instead of violent, humble instead of flashy, he did come to liberate them.

His liberation was going to look very different from what they thought, but it was never meant to be about a spirituality that was separated from the physical suffering of the oppressed; it was meant to encompass all of it.

One of the hymns in our hymnbook sings about the freedom that is ours in Jesus.

Once I was bound by sin’s galling fetters,

Chained like a slave, I struggled in vain;

But I received a glorious freedom,

When Jesus broke my fetters in twain.

Refrain:

Glorious freedom, wonderful freedom,

No more in chains of sin I repine!

Jesus the glorious Emancipator,

Now and forever He shall be mine.

If we aren't careful, we can gloss over all of that reality when we try to rush to the praise and celebration of Palm Sunday.

If we aren't careful, we can gloss over our own realities, our own suffering and pain, our own need for a Savior in the entirety of our spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical lives.

We can gloss over the deep-hearted cries of "Hosanna!"-a

humble, desperate cry for a Savior that we very much still need to be crying out in our world today.

The Unusual King

There was a pattern and tradition to triumphal entries in Rome.

The Roman triumph was the highest honor granted to emperors and generals in the Roman Empire.

It was a procession into the city of Rome, led by government officials, followed by sacrificial animals for the temples of the Roman gods, followed by the champion in a chariot, usually wearing purple regalia, followed by the champion's captives of war.

This processional was given to honor those who were victorious in war.

It included festivals, dancing, singing, and flower petals strewn upon the ground.

The path for the processional was often intentionally cleaned and prepared in advance to usher in the triumphant victor of war.

Jesus's triumphal entry was different.

He didn't enter into the city of Rome, the heart of the empire.

He went into Jerusalem, the location of the temple and the heart of the Jewish faith.

He did not entering as a victor of war.

Instead, he marched toward his own death- which was a victorious act of a different kind.

Jesus's triumphal entry is an example of the upside-down nature of the kingdom of God, where victory comes through humility rather than the violent means of conquering a foe.

Finally, instead of a horse and chariot, Jesus rode in on a donkey, another illustration of humility.

Donkeys were pack animals, not war animals, and they were also a symbol of peace, as opposed to horses, which symbolized war and victory.

Jesus's departure from the norm wasn't just in his triumphal entry; it was in the way he was born and lived his life.

The triumphal entry obviously illustrates the ways that Jesus is using Roman symbols in a different way, but his entire life was dedicated to a different way.

He was born in a stable, not a palace, and welcomed by shepherds rather than nobility.

His ministry confounded Jewish leaders as he healed on the Sabbath, ministered to gentiles, humanized women, and pushed back against other religious norms that marked him as different.

The Holistic Liberator

At my job I talk to my clients about taking a holistic approach to their treatment.

What I mean is addressing their entire life.

I do that because that is how Jesus ministered.

Jesus freed people physically.

He performed miracles of healing that restored sight, mobility, health, and even life from death.

He also performed miracles that met basic needs, like hunger and thirst (feeding the multitudes, turning water into wine, helping the disciples catch fish).

Ron Lavin wrote:

It is hard to heal those who are sick, especially if they don't believe that they are sick.

It is hard to heal when you yourself are sick.

It is so hard that no one can accomplish the task of healing -- at least not by human power alone.

Healing and cleansing are the work of God.

Some of the difficulty with this predicament comes from the multitude of misunderstandings about healing.

One misunderstanding comes from how you define healing.

The Bible defines healing in terms of salvation.

To be saved does not just mean going to heaven.

Salvation means wholeness.

Wholeness includes the body.

The Bible defines healing in holistic terms.

Jesus sent his followers out to heal.

Some people see healing as limited to the body.

They are aware of physical pain and suffering, and see doctors, nurses, and hospitals as the only means of dealing with their maladies.

Some people are not aware of the mental and spiritual sides of healing, and some are not aware of the fact that faith can play a major role in healing.

Disease literally means "not at ease." Disease is disharmony, disturbance, dysfunction, derangement, or disunity in the parts of the whole person.

Healing means restoration of the unity of the body, the mind, and the spirit.

The disease which seems bodily may be mental at root; the disease which seems mental may be spiritual; the disease which seems individual may be social at the same time.

The human spirit must be reunited with the God's divine Spirit for wholeness to be restored.

That's why repentance is mentioned with healing in this text.

"Heal the sick" means to help people regain their lives as a whole.

For example, standing in front of a starving man while preaching the gospel, but neglecting to feed him, adds to his sickness rather than restores his health.

For a medical doctor to take out a stomach ulcer, but to neglect the condition which gave rise to the ulcer -- whether it is spiritual, psychological, or sociological -- is far less than the healing Jesus calls for.

Healers are called to do more.

Jesus's resurrection is the ultimate testament to God's liberation of the physical body because in Jesus's resurrection we get a glimpse of the type of bodily resurrection that awaits us all.

Jesus freed people in social ways too.

He freed people from bondage to destructive systems, calling people to live according to a different way.

He called tax collectors to stop cheating people; he called the wealthy to lives of scandalous generosity.

He called laborers to rest from their toils.

He pronounced blessings upon the poor.

He overturned tables in the temple to illustrate his intolerance of injustice and exploitation.

Jesus called people out of legalism, breaking religious rules by being willing to physically touch and talk to women who weren't part of his immediate family; by healing on the Sabbath; and by touching the diseased, who were considered unclean.

Jesus called people out of their own systems of prejudice by recasting a hated ethnic group (Samaritans) as heroic and/or worthy of his personal attention; by honoring and prioritizing women; and by socializing with outcasts and sinners.

Jesus freed people from spiritual destruction.

He cast out demons, pointed people toward God, called his followers to righteousness, and urged the people to repent of their sins.

In every way imaginable, Jesus sought to save people from sin, destruction, and brokenness.

The People's Savior

The road that led through Jerusalem was the same road that led to the cross.

The work of Christ had already begun.

He had already begun saving people, but the work came to a point of atonement through the cross.

The death of Christ is the ultimate act of liberation from sin, the work continues in the resurrection as the liberation from death, and it will come to completion when Christ finally returns to make all things right.

The Savior was present in the people's midst in Jerusalem.

They just didn't understand that the way to be freed wasn't through power and control but through love and humility.