Palm Sunday

March 30, 2015 in Sermon by Scott Landrum

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem
11 When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'” 4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, 5 some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. 9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” 11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

“Though he was God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,” Paul tells us of Jesus. A “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem on the back of a borrowed colt is but one example of Jesus’ humility. Now I’m no cowboy, in fact my experience with horses is confined to two rides on a trail horse . . . it was enough, but I’m pretty sure that horses that have never been ridden don’t like it. It must have been quite a spectacle, Jesus holding on for dear life to the mane of his four legged ride cruising into town. Kingly, godly, expected . . . hardly. Nevertheless, it was God doing his thing, coming in the form of opposites, masked and hidden. God being God always offends. An offered corrective to God’s actions is given by the infamous Reverend Ike who said of this passage, “Jesus may have ridden into town on a jackass but I’m riding into town in a Rolls Royce.” Indeed, this whole scene is offensive for folks like us with our lust for divinity. Seems we are always trying to escape the common, the creaturely, the earthly, the humble and meek as we climb our way right out of this world to a place more suited to the great spiritual beings we think ourselves to be. And as we climb the ladder up we pass God coming down, way down, all the way down in fact to mangers, meals with sinners, donkey rides, crosses, graves and even hell itself. There is a reason for God’s downward descent. It’s because that is where we are and all our efforts to overcome and transcend it are very tiring. As much as we try, as much as we strive, as much as we become who we are and live into our potential, as much as we embark on our quest for the purpose-driven life and do our very best at the end of the day God’s law says you have not been, you cannot be, but you must be perfect. The evil one continually and quite correctly whispers that sin hangs around your neck like a boulder and you are no less sinful today than you have ever been. And the grave beckons with the confirmation number of your reservation. How wearisome it is that we are captivated by the belief that with just a little more effort and time things will get better because surely it isn’t as bad as all that. But nothing much changes does it and it really is that bad. We are like Sisyphus who was condemned for eternity to roll a stone up a ramp only to have it roll back down from the top forcing him to repeat the whole process. The fact is we have died and dead people can only do one thing, be dead. It is our deadness that is killing us. Is there no hope? Is there no peace? Is there no joy, no happiness, no satisfaction? Indeed there is riding into town on a four legged beast of burden. God, humbled, obedient, coming to meet us where we are; that is our joy. And what do you suppose God is coming to meet us with? A Rolls Royce, a motivational speech about how to find your best life now, musings about what may or may not become of us after we die . . . no. Isaiah tells us quite clearly in the first reading what God is coming down with. God comes to meet us with a word that sustains the weary. God comes with a word that takes away our need to make ourselves good, holy people with whom God is obligated to reward. This word is a word of promise that resurrects dead people like us by giving us trust that the equine riding God, not us, will silence the condemnation of the law against us, the accusations of the evil one against us and remove the sting of death against us by resurrecting us. And just like he did at that first triumphal entry, this faith creating word from God still comes to us in a most unusual, humble, common way. Bread and wine and water and words; who would have thought it? But make no mistake about who gives this word this way. Today he is not sitting on the back of a colt. No, he is seated at the right hand of the Father. Before him every knee will bend and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And as his ambassador, Jesus Christ commands me to give you his very familiar word so listen up. By Christ’s authority and for his sake I forgive you the entirety of your sin and all of this apart from and in spite of your doing. There, that is Jesus Christ’s word of promise to you. Weary one, it is not up to you to save yourself, keep yourself believing, trusting, making yourself acceptable to God, good enough and all the rest, Jesus Christ is your salvation not you. So lift up those palm branches, shout hosanna, Jesus Christ, the king of all glory, has come all the way down for you. Amen.