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The King’s Parade

  Date:      Palm Sunday

 Texts:

Isaiah 59:14-20

1 Timothy 1:12-17

Luke 19:28-40

 Theme:      Without the suffering and death of Jesus, Easter has have no meaning.   It is

what is between Palm Sunday and Easter that counts: the hard words: “No pain, no gain.  No cross, no crown.”

 Subject:      Palm Sunday, suffering

 [Piano: “I Love a Parade”]

“I love a parade!” exclaims the Gershwin song.  We all love a parade.   How can we help but love the one observed today?

Worship services on Palm Sunday and Easter boast the highest attendance of any Sundays of the church year.  And why not? As religious observances go, these two Sundays are uppers! They exalt and excite our spirits! Palm Sunday with its circuslike frivolity, the waving of ceremonial palms, the shouts of the excited crowds is as joyous as any holiday of any kind. 

And next Sunday is Easter egg hunts, new Easter clothes, Easter baskets, Easter bunnies, Easter bonnets, Easter vacation, and the Easter ham dinner at Gramma’s.  There are two kinds of Holy Week observers (both, I would hasten to add, loved of God), those who bask in the joy of Palm Sunday and Easter; and those who wrestle with the reality of all eight days of Holy Week.

Those who attend church on the two Sundays of Holy Week can completely avoid the unpleasantness of the intervening six days.  They can have the best of times—the triumphal procession today and the resurrection next Sunday—without subjecting themselves to the worst of times.  They can avoid the pain and still claim the gain.  They can wear the crown without bearing the cross.  At least they think so.  As commentator David Tiede observes, “A society that prefers to deny the reality of sin and death [will] love Palm Sunday and Easter.” But the message of the Gospel is simple, unavoidable, and direct: “No pain, no gain. No cross, no crown.” Today is Palm Sunday, but it is also known by many Christians as the Sunday of the Passion.  This parade will end with the death of the Son of David.   The crowds who today cry “Hosanna” will in a few days shout “crucify him!” Who is this man who enters Jerusalem scant days before the Feast of Passover?  And why should we care?

Who is this man? He is Jesus the clown.  Look at him on his unsure saddle of cloaks thrown on a donkeys back.  Is he riding that one tiny beast of burden or should we take Matthew literally and believe that he was riding both donkey and foal? Jesus the clown.  He mocks what we take most seriously—our solemnity, our dignity, our accomplishments, our standing in the community.  He asks us to laugh at ourselves, to stop taking our petty concerns so seriously.  He offers us not only light but lightness as well.

Who is this man? He is Jesus the scandal.  Who would want to associate with this rowdy, this friend of extortionists (they were called “tax collectors”), women of questionable reputation, social outcasts, the poor, the homeless, carriers of deadly diseases? He is so unpredictable, so dangerous.  I did not say he was unpredictable and dangerous—he is.  Why should we want to have anything to do with him? But he does not seem to give us a choice.  He stands at the door of our life and knocks.  He lurks like a panther about to pounce in the back of our minds, in the corners of our consciousness, in the recesses of our hearts, in the depths of our consciences.  Who is this man? He is Jesus the earthquake.  Matthew says, “When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred. .  .  .” What a weak translation! Was the whole Bay Area “stirred” when the World Series was interrupted by the shake of ‘89?  Were our lives merely “stirred”?

Jesus is an earthquake.   He shakes us to the very foundations of our being.   He comforts us when we are afflicted and afflicts us when we are comfortable.   And he produces people who are just like him—indispensable, exciting, and uncontrollable.  Remember the Chinese curse: “I pray that you may be born in an exciting time”?  Let Jesus the earthquake get close to you and look out.   Let any of his disciples within earshot of your life and stand back.

Who is this man? He is Jesus the king.  He is on Palm Sunday what he always is—dignity within riot.   We distort his message.  We try to make him like us and unlike everyone else.   But he never loses hold on who he is.  He does not allow the cheers of his suddenly won friends to distract him anymore than he permits the jeers of his opponents to set his priorities.

Who is this man?  He is Jesus the offering.  His coming to Jerusalem, swollen by pilgrims to a population of a million and a half, was not to rule but to die.  He came to die—not as a victim, not as a martyr, but as a willing sacrifice.  His death was not an unfortunate accident. It was, if we are to believe him, God’s plan.  From the beginning of his ministry, he had set his face like a flint.  His life had been in danger practically from the day of his birth. He knew it, and yet he came to Jersusalem to die.  Who is this man? He is Jesus the king—not a king who rules with force and terror, but a king who can lay aside his garments, clothe himself in a towel and wash the feet of his disciples.  He is not a king who demands obedience but a friend who wins it.   He is a king who surrenders everything for his subjects even his life, a king who empties himself, humbles himself in order to serve. He does not bring us new, esoteric doctrines or teach us yogic postures or improve our diet or teach us how to be successful or how to walk on hot coals.  Instead he models God.  He images God.  He sets an example and leaves it to us to do what God has done, to exalt him, to give him the name in our lives that is above all names, to confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.  Who is this man?  “Jesus Christ is Lord” shout the writers of the New Testament.  This absurd donkey rider is Lord? “Jesus is Lord?” we muse.   Nearly two millennia have passed and still the questions remain as fresh as they were when he led his feeble parade: “Is he a man like any other man? Is he God in the flesh? a teacher? a prophet? an example?”

Palm Sunday, the Sunday of Passion, is the beginning of the end. But more decisively it is the end of the beginning.  Within a few days, this one solitary life will seem to be terminated in ignominy and defeat.  But it does not end.  Why not? Why does he still hold on to our yearnings and imagination two thousand years after the events of these eight days? What trick has been worked by this clown-king, this Passover sacrifice, this claimant to the throne of our hearts?

The answer is not to be found on the Sundays of triumph.  For without the suffering and death of Jesus they have no meaning.  It is what is between Palm Sunday and Easter that counts: the hard words—No pain, no gain.  No cross, no crown.  There is no free lunch.  Life is unfair.  If you can’t endure the darkness, you will never recognize the light.  

But once we willingly enter the cloud of pain and confusion, once we are willing to pay the cost, to take up our cross and follow him, the stone rolls away, the sun rises, the light breaks through, and God is God.

Let us rejoice then that our king has come! Let us join the parade and welcome him.  Let us go with him to the Upper Room and Gethsemane.  Let us stand at the foot of his cross.  And let us know in our lives the power of his resurrection.

Amen.

--LDS

 [1322 words]

[13 minutes]