Palm Sunday Sermon

Here is the sermon from Sunday, March 24, Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday: The Day of the King

You walk into the grocery store.  You’ve decided that you are going to be very bold about your faith, so as you walk in, you start to say loudly, “Prepare the way for Jesus.”  You grab a roll of paper towels and roll it out from just inside the sliding doors that mark the entrance to the store.  As you walk beside that line of paper, you praise God with a loud voice, all the while looking back at the door, waiting for Jesus to enter in.  But the automatic door doesn’t open.  So you lift up your voice and cry out once again.  “Blessed is Jesus, who comes in the name of the Lord.”  And then, the door opens!  Only, instead of Jesus, it’s a mom with her two kids in the shopping cart.  They walk in, looking at you kind of strange.

You make your pronouncement a few more times.  Only, now you are starting to draw a crowd around you.  Curious shoppers are coming to the ends of the aisles to see what the commotion is all about.  And finally, he shows up.  The store manager, that is.  “You’re scaring away the customers, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave, or to go about your shopping.”  And so, you pick up your basket and walk down the first aisle, scratching your head, wondering why the cans of vegetables are not crying out Jesus’ name.  This time, it seems like the Pharisees have won.  Their desire to have the disciples of Jesus be quiet seems to have taken the day.

Today we’ve got our palm branches to wave as we celebrate Palm Sunday.  And I use the word celebrate here deliberately.  As I read through that reading a few minutes ago, you really should have picked up on the sense that it was a celebration.  Jesus had been on the scene for a while.  He had been teaching for a period of about three years.  During that time, He had done numerous miracles.  The blind received their sight, the lame got up and walked, the mute began to speak, the deaf began to hear, and the Good News of the kingdom and reign of God was being spread throughout the land.  Many, many people had been witnesses to what Jesus had been doing.  He had taught them as someone who not only knew what the Scriptures said, but knew how they impacted the lives of the people.  He showed compassion, and taught that God was a God who didn’t only look at those who had their lives together, but who wanted to break into people whose lives were broken, and imperfect, and sinful, and that God wanted to bring healing and not only judgment into those lives.

The people had been hearing, and they responded.  It was like a snowball, and yes, I know that you may not get to see many snowballs around here, but it was like one that started rolling down the side of a mountain.  The story and reputation of Jesus kept getting bigger and bigger.  Finally, it all seemed to be coming to a climactic point in the story.  Jesus was heading to Jerusalem, the city of the Kings of Israel.  There was that sense that the time was right.  The King was going to claim His throne.  This great miracle worker was going to claim His rightful place at the head of God’s people.

And so the crowds responded.  Branches were broken down and covered the path before Jesus.  For those who could, their cloaks and coats were cast down in front of Him, showing Him the honor that was fit for a king.  It was truly a celebration, and Jesus sure seemed to be playing right along with it.  There He was, riding into the city for the most holy of weeks, riding on a donkey, just like it had been spoken of through Zechariah the prophet.  God’s own servant was coming to be made king, and so the celebratory cry was lifted up to the skies.  Hosanna to the King!  The great celebration was on!

How great it would have been to be there.  The festive mood.  The joy in the people travelling with Jesus.  To see God’s servant riding in, thinking that this most holy of weeks was going to hold something great in store.  The air was practically crackling with expectation.  The popular prophet of God was going into the city, and He was one who spoke for the common people.  He was a man who spoke for God, and who had great authority in what He did and what He said.  He was a man who was going to bring about great change.  What He would do would change the life of the nation.  And so the people celebrated.  God would do something great through this man!

And yet, I want to invite us to take a step back this morning to see this day in a slightly different way.  For just a moment, let’s lay aside the palm branches.  Let’s lower our voices from their loud Hosannas and ponder for a few moments.  In some respects, that Sunday, as Jesus made His way into Jerusalem, wasn’t really all that remarkable of a day.  He had made this journey before.  Every year, thousands of people made their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  It was the yearly commemoration of God’s great act of deliverance.  The people would remember when God had freed their ancestors from the land of Egypt.  They would hear the old familiar story.  Slaves in Egypt.  A man by the name of Moses.  Ten vicious plagues that touched the Egyptians.  A hasty meal of unleavened bread and roasted lamb.  A quick journey to the Red Sea, and then a miraculous crossing.  God was on their side, with His mighty hand and His outstretched arm.

In a sense, there wasn’t a lot that should have been remarkable about that day.  It was essentially a travel day for Jesus and His followers.  They had been there, done that, and maybe even had the tunic to prove it.  It was a time to remember what God had done, but that particular remembrance had been done for centuries.  It would be the same ritual, the same food, the same wine, and the same conclusion when everyone packed up and headed back home.

And yet, no one could deny it.  There simply seemed to be a reason to pick up the branches and wave them.  The air was filled with expectation.  Here was one who was worthy to be King.  Here was one who truly did come in the name of the LORD.  He had proven that He knew God, more than any other person.  This man, Jesus, had shown that He knew how to right the wrongs, regardless of the impact.  He would speak what needed to be said, no matter who the person was that He was talking to.  Great expectations filled the air.

Today, you and I wave the palm branches.  But I would dare venture to say that our expectations of this coming Holy Week are far different than the expectations of that day.  We have the great fortune of living on this side of the events that transpired that week.  We see through the eyes of faith those things that were hidden from the eyes of the crowds that day.  We see that even though Jesus very visibly rode into Jerusalem to claim His Kingship, it would happen in a way that seemed more hidden than anything else.

Today, we wave our palm branches because we celebrate the hidden God.  We rejoice because Jesus is indeed the king that they were celebrating, though in a far different way than they expected.  We rejoice in a God who was hidden throughout that week.  We rejoice in a God who hid under the disguise of a servant, who would bend down to wash the feet of His followers.  We celebrate a God who would take the bread and declare it to be His very own body.  We celebrate a God who would pass the cup of wine around, announcing that it was His blood which was about to spilled.  We celebrate a God who is a God of forgiveness, but whose forgiveness was found hidden in the suffering and death of that God on a common cross on the outskirts of the holy city.

As we wave our palm branches today in celebration, we celebrate a hidden God.  One of the great joys that we celebrate today is the occasion of a few of our young people receiving their first communion.  For the first time in their lives, they are participating in one of the acts in which God reveals Himself, even as He is hidden underneath common, everyday things.  Common bread, which hides the body of Jesus, which was broken on the cross for your forgiveness.  A common cup of wine, which hides the blood of Jesus, which was shed on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins.  As we raise our palm branches today, we celebrate our hidden God.

And we also celebrate a God who doesn’t always enter in with trumpet and fanfare.  We are told that God makes His entrance into the lives of people in hidden ways, through things like simple water and God’s Word spoken over the person.  We are told that God makes His entrance through the words of His book, read and spoken and proclaimed and reflected upon.  It might be a lot more dynamic if He would enter in with loud shouts and lightning bolts and thunder, but for reasons beyond our understanding, God seems more often to work in much more hidden ways.

So let’s go back to the grocery store where we started off today.  You pass through those automatic doors.  Rather than rolling out roll of paper towels to pave the way for Jesus, you simply ask God to make His entrance into the lives of all those who happen to be in the store at that moment.  Instead of shouting out, Prepare the way for Jesus, you ask God to provide you the opportunity to see where He has been preparing the way in the life of at least one person in the store right then.  While it might be completely appropriate to sing and shout God’s praises, you do more along the lines of whistling a hymn tune, or even lightly singing that hymn or song as you wander down the aisles.  And then, rather than having the store manager come up and ask you to leave, you just may have the hidden God reveal where He has already been at work as someone approaches you to ask what you are singing or humming.  And you give thanks to God that He has shown you how He is already at work to prepare the way for the King to enter in.

Today we raise up our palm branches in celebration.  We know what the people of that day didn’t know.  God was indeed sending His king to claim His throne, but it would look very different from what the expectations likely were that day.  And when our time of worship today comes to a close, we lay aside the palm branches.  We follow Jesus on a journey that leads into the city.  We follow Him to the upper room to celebrate the Passover with His disciples, which you are invited to join on Wednesday for our Passover Seder.  We follow Jesus as He shows the hidden God that is found in the greatest servant of all, one who would wrap the towel around His waist and wash the dirty feet of His followers.  We follow Jesus as He reveals that He gives His own body and blood underneath common bread and wine, which we observe this coming Thursday.  And then, we follow Jesus to that most hidden of places.  A cross that stands against a darkened sky.  God hidden from human eyes as He suffered not merely physical pain, but the rejection that sin calls for, and the punishment that sin demands.  We follow Jesus as He hides Himself in death, giving up His life for the creation He loves and redeems.  We mute our cries of celebration as His lifeless body is laid in the tomb.  Blessed is one who comes in the name of the Lord.  Only, He chooses to come into that kingdom through the most unlikely, hidden of ways.  Blessed indeed is the king who comes in the name of the LORD, even when the stones do not cry out.  Amen.