Do You Know What You Are Saying?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 24, 2013

Palm Sunday

Do You Know What You Are Saying?

Luke 19:28-40

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!

Lo, your king comes to you,

triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey.”

(Zechariah 9:9)

Were these words,

words spoken by the prophet Zechariah some 500 years before,

were these words running through the minds of any of the disciples

on that first Palm Sunday?

Did any of the people lining the road

as the procession wound its way around the Mount of Olives

on its way to the gates of the city of Jerusalem,

think of the prophet’s words?

“Lo, your king comes to you…

humble and riding on a donkey.”

Who would have looked at the man on the back of the donkey

and thought of him as a king?

Even Peter might have struggled with that idea.

A king is majestic,

formidable,

all powerful.

A king rules;

he commands obedience.

The people bow down to the king

out of equal measures of respect and fear.

A king reflects greatness and glory,

power and might;

A king is the personification of the nation.

Who could possibly have looked at the man astride the donkey,

especially if they knew it was a borrowed burro he was riding,

and thought of him as a king?

Who could possibly have thought of him as

“triumphant and victorious”?

Who could possibly have looked at him and thought

that this man was the one who would

“command peace to the nations

and whose dominion [would be] from sea to sea”?

(Zechariah 9:10)

This was a man whose own hometown had rejected him,

and whose very disciples struggled to obey him,

who ate with sinners and prostitutes and the unclean.

And yet, there was something that

moved through the crowds,

something that moved the crowds,

as though the wind whistling through the valley

carried the very breath of God.

And so, as Jesus passed by on the back of that small animal,

his dirty, dusty feet skimming the surface of the road,

the people “spread their cloaks on the road,”

and waved their palm branches with joyful abandon.

And then, as he came down the road

that wound around the Mount of Olives,

with the great Temple rising up ahead of him,

“the whole multitude of disciples

began to praise God joyfully with loud voices

for all the deeds of power they had seen.”

“Blessed is the king!” they shouted,

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven,

and glory in the highest heaven!”

The crowd grew boisterous, loud,

so loud and feverish with enthusiasm

that the Pharisees – the leaders of the Temple –

demanded that Jesus silence his disciples.

But the man no one thought of as king

looked at his disciples with delight;

their joy was his joy.

And in response he said to the Pharisees,

“I tell you, if these were silent,                                 

the stones would shout out.”

It was Jesus’ way of telling the Pharisees,

that no, he would not tell his beloved friends to be quiet,

for he knew that they were filled with joy,

that they were filled with the Spirit of God.

Jesus knew that even he could not silence them.

He may have wanted to repeat more of

the prophet Habbakuk’s words,

for the words, spoken 600 years before,

seemed so appropriate for the Pharisees,

so applicable to the Pharisees:

“Alas for you who get evil gain for your houses,
   setting your nest on high
   to be safe from the reach of harm!
You have devised shame for your house
   by cutting off many peoples;
   you have forfeited your life.
The very stones will cry out from the wall,
   and the plaster will respond from the woodwork.”

(Habbakuk 2:9-11)

With the Temple looming large above them,

the Pharisees, the Sadducees –

all the leaders of the religious community

had brought shame on God’s house,

by their faithlessness,

their self-righteousness,

their arrogance,

their determination to make God’s house

a place to glorify themselves.

The Pharisees were so good at parading their faith,

but so inept at living their faith.

The boisterous group of parading men and women

all shouting out around Jesus

certainly had their shortcomings,

but they tried their best to live their faith,

to live as Jesus taught them,

as God commanded them.

“Look at the proud!” warned Habbukuk,

“Their spirit is not right in them;

but the righteous live by their faith…

…[and] the proud do not endure…”

So on Jesus rode,

leaving the Pharisees to look at each other in bemusement.

On he rode,

on to the gate that led into Jerusalem,

the men and women following him,

all of them still filled with joy and excitement,

the sullenness of the Pharisees of no concern to them.

On walked the crowd that followed Jesus,

singing out the Passover psalm,

for it was the Passover that drew them to Jerusalem:

“This is the day that the Lord has made,

let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord…!

The Lord is God and he has given us light!

Bind the festal procession with branches!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord…!”

(Psalm 118:24-27)

Had any of us been there on the road just outside Jerusalem,

would we have seen a king in the man astride the donkey?

Would we have joined the disciples in their singing?

Would we have surrendered to the Spirit

and joined the procession?

Or would we have chosen the easier path,

the much less risky path,

and simply joined the crowds along the side,

waving palm branches and shouting from the sidelines

as we watched the parade go by?

Would we have followed the group into the city,

a group that had found itself on the wrong side of authority

even before it passed through the city gates?

Two thousand years later we still struggle to follow Jesus,

follow him as one is called to follow a king,

follow him in obedience,

surrendering our will not from fear,

but in joyful response to the grace and love

given us by God in Christ.

Two thousand years later we still struggle

to give ourselves to God,

to Jesus completely,

making Mary’s words to God our own:

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

Let it be with me according to your word.”

(Luke 1:38)

Two thousand years later we still struggle

to make Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gesthemene

our own prayer:

“Not my will, O Lord, but yours be done.”

(Luke 22:42)

Two thousand years later the parade still beckons

but we find it easier to stand on the side of the road.

Oh yes, we wave our palms enthusiastically,

and shout out,

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,”

but we then let the parade pass so we can get back to our lives,

back to the things we feel called to do,

the things we need and want to do.

“Hosanna” is the right word for us to shout out,

 for the word means “save us”.

It is a plea, a call for help.

 

“Save us Lord”, not from temptation or evil,

but from lukewarm faith.

Save us from our hesitancy,

our unwillingness to surrender ourselves completely to Christ

Save us from our selective learning,

our selective obedience,

picking and choosing the lessons we like

and discarding the others.  

Save us O Lord, from our reluctance to embrace the reality

that we have been called to follow

the stone the builders rejected,

and that following Christ often means

the life we are called to live will run counter to

what society teaches us.

Save us O Lord from our short memories,

that cause us to forget that in our baptisms

we died to the old life, the old ways,

and were reborn, re-created

to new life in Christ.

Five hundred years ago John Calvin told us

what we know deep in our hearts

but which find too easy to forget:

that what we call Christianity is

“a doctrine not of tongue, but of life.

… it is received only when it possesses the whole soul,

and finds a seat and resting place

in the inmost affection of the heart.”

(Institutes, 3.6.4)

It was a such humble parade

that entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday,

led by a man who could not have looked less like a king.

But that man is our king,

and he calls us to follow him,

surrendering ourselves completely to him

He calls us to join the parade,

our voices united in praise and hope:

“Rejoice greatly and shout aloud!

for the gates of righteousness are open

and we are invited to enter through them.

The Lord is our strength and our might,

and the stone the builders rejected

has become for us the chief cornerstone.”

Step off the sidelines and join the parade;

join the procession led by our king.

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!

Glory to God in highest heaven.”

AMEN