Palm Sunday
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Readings: Isaiah 50: 4-9a; Philippians 2: 5-11; Luke 19: 28-40
Some places have a bad association just through their names. If I said Hillsborough, Hiroshima, or Dallas, you will most probably think of a football stadium disaster; the unleashing of an atomic bomb, and the site of the assassination of President Kennedy.
Jerusalem, said Jesus, was the place where prophets had been killed and those sent to it stoned, and now it would be remembered for something far more significant. Today we embark on Holy Week, and, as our introductory words this morning said, “Christ enters his own city to complete his work as our Saviour, to suffer, to die, and to rise again.”
In St. Luke’s gospel, from which our account of Palm Sunday today was taken, Jerusalem plays an important role. Jesus is taken there at 40 days old for his Presentation at the Temple. When he is 12, his parents make another journey there for the Passover, and Jesus goes missing, only to be found in the temple, listening to the teachers and asking them questions. Repeatedly Luke underlines that Jesus is on his way to the city, and now his journey is close to its climax.
The timing of his final entry into Jerusalem is important. Passover was the feast when the story of the liberation of God’s people from slavery was celebrated. Jesus deliberately chose the Passover and its celebration to proclaim his message. He had won the hearts of the ordinary people, who gathered in a multitude to acclaim him, the ‘king who comes in the name of the Lord.’
But too much enthusiasm isn’t welcomed by any religious establishment, because people power challenges elite leadership. And the Roman authorities were always on high alert during Passover, because people were celebrating that liberation from Egypt centuries before, and how they would like to celebrate liberation from Roman rule now – and was this Jesus just the man to bring it about?
We’re very much used to public demonstrations, and there are such gatherings almost every weekend in London – promoting this, opposing that, in supporting oppressed people, challenging injustice or perceived threats to freedom. You’ve possibly been on some yourselves. Some protests remain peaceful; others turn ugly. Confusion often results. I’m always amused by the account of an uproar in Ephesus as described in the Acts of the Apostles. “Some shouted one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.” While the crowds were welcoming Jesus in Jerusalem, there was no doubt an anti-Roman element about it all as well; shouts maybe for Home Rule! Cut the Taxes! Soldiers go home! Free the People…and eventually, Free Barabbas. As one writer notes, “When the God you worship has the same enemies as you, you know you are worshipping an idol.”
Jesus may have taken the opportunity of Passover to make his entry into Jerusalem, but how he arrived gave the clue as to what his intentions were, or weren’t. People would well have known the prophecy of Zechariah, which reads, “Your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Your king comes – humble. This was not how victors would normally announce themselves; a hero would arrive on a war-horse, not a beast of burden. And maybe the people hadn’t read just a few verses on in Zechariah, “He shall cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem, and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” In fact, if people had wanted a suitable text from their scriptures, they could have done worse than taking verses from the Isaiah reading we heard, a description of the so-called ‘suffering servant’ of the Lord – “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord God helps me, therefore I have not been disgraced.”
Of course, in our keeping of Palm Sunday we know the story. We acclaim Jesus as our King, not expecting him to overthrow the Romans, but as the one who has overcome the world, triumphed over death and won victory through the grave. So we can celebrate as the crowd did on the first Palm Sunday. But we recognize that taking up the path of peace led to the cross for Jesus.
He knew that the love he had for the world and his message of peace would meet opposition. He was committed to non-violence and non-retaliation, and people often don’t understand that. When Jesus resisted the crowd’s violent intentions against the Romans, the aggression within them spilled out and needed a target. The cross was the inevitable consequence when Jesus chose the power of love over the love of power.
We heard from the remarkable second chapter of St Paul’s letter to the Philippians. This is a passage that seemed to be used as an early Christian hymn, so well does it encapsulate the wonder of Jesus’ self-giving. ‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.”
Jesus laid aside his power, something human beings do not find easy. We see day by day how the power of wealth, the power of status, and the power of influence hinders the advancement of God’s kingdom. Jesus asks his followers to take up their cross and follow him, and says still to those who claim to be his followers that true greatness is found in pursuing the power of love, and the emptying of self for the good of the other.
In these perplexing days of rapidly-changing world affairs, we may wonder whether we can do anything to promote what is good and right in the face of seemingly invincible powers. But Good Friday and Easter tell us that the power of love is greater than the love of power. The world was changed then and countless millions of Christians since the first Holy Week and now have witnessed to the love of God in Christ. We were noticing last week how much Jesus needed friends as he lived and went about among us. Let us journey closely with him this week, in his betrayal, abandonment, suffering and death, marvelling in the great love which poured out from that self-emptying that St. Paul speaks of. May we carry in our lives the love and sufferings of Jesus, that others may also be drawn to that figure on the cross, and find truth and peace there.