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Holy Week - Luke 19:28-44
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Well, thank you for being here on Palm Sunday. There has been a lot already going on in the service, dedications and baptisms and palms. And so we want to extend our thanks to all those who are being baptized and who are dedicating their children or baptizing their children this weekend. We're deeply honored to participate in these moments as a church family. That said, it is also the beginning of Holy Week today and the start of our final movement together towards the cross and resurrection.
Speaker 1:And so today, we gather to fold palm leaves, to celebrate Jesus, and to rehearse his entrance into Jerusalem. Now last week, we ended our series on the parables of judgment, the very hardest parables. And I'm not gonna take any time this morning to recap that as we often do. But you can find all of that series on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/commonschurch, if you'd like to catch up that way. I did even post some follow-up thoughts to our Facebook page this week, and that is something that I'm trying to do more and more of.
Speaker 1:Sometimes there is just not enough time on Sunday. And so if you head over to facebook.com/commonschurch, you'll get those updates as well because I'm trying to post those. Maybe not every week, but fairly regularly going forward. Now I said last week, I pushed past the end of our last parable in Matthew 25 and I read the first line of Matthew 26 which says, when Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, as you know, the Passover is two days away and the son of man will be handed over to be crucified. And so everything that we have been looking at in this season of Lent has been building and leaning and moving us towards Holy Week.
Speaker 1:And so today as we begin that final movement toward resurrection, would you stand with me one more time as I read the story of Palm Sunday? So this is Luke chapter 19 verses 28 to 44. After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. And as he approached Bethphage and Bethany in the hill called the Mount Of Olives, he sent two of his disciples saying to them, go to the village ahead of you. And as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden.
Speaker 1:Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, why are you untying it? Say, the Lord needs it. Those who were sent ahead found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, the dong the owners asked them, why are you untying this colt?
Speaker 1:And they replied, the Lord needs it. So they brought it to Jesus and they threw their cloaks on the colt and Jesus was put on it. And as he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down to the Mount Of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. But some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, rebuke your disciples. And he replied, I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stone themselves will cry out. And so as he approached Jerusalem and he saw the city, he wept over it and he said, if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.
Speaker 1:They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. Let's stand and pray. God, may we recognize you. May we draw near to you.
Speaker 1:May we recognize what brings light and love into our world. And may we celebrate the coming of the one who is grace, where we have missed your appearance in our lives. Perhaps we were looking the other way or looking for something else? Maybe too clouded by images of strength or power or glory that came from what we saw around us and not what we see in your son. Would you heal and repair and redeem our imaginations?
Speaker 1:Would you forgive us where we have broken your heart? And for the moments where we have made you weep by choosing a path away from you, would your spirit recalibrate and your son forgive and your grace redeem our lives. May we join with all creation and learn to sing Hosanna. In the name of the one whose resurrection we await, we pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen. Alright. Have a seat. Now today is one of those days where we rehearse a very familiar story. And that's okay sometimes.
Speaker 1:Sometimes the lesson is simply to be reminded, to flow and to follow and to track with this story that is the central moment of history as it unfolds before us. And so this Tuesday and Wednesday, if you are able to come and experience the stations of the cross, Friday as we join together at 10AM to mourn the death of God, and even next Sunday as we gather to celebrate resurrection, my prayer is that you would simply experience the story of Easter this season. But that story begins as Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And you may have noticed in the scripture that I read that there are actually no mentions of palms. And no you didn't miss it.
Speaker 1:Luke just doesn't bother to mention them at all. Apparently, Luke did not realize just how big a deal palms would be for us these days. But the tradition of palms actually comes from the gospel of John. Where he adds that they took palm branches and they went out to meet him shouting Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Blessed is the king of Israel. And as nice as the practice of folding palms is, personally, find it very meaningful exercise over Easter, to fold this cross and then to keep it with me this week. We still have to recognize just how political all of this is. The phrase Hosanna that we sing that comes from Hebrew and it literally means something like God save us now. And when that is a bunch of Jews living in occupied territory by Rome, that becomes a fairly political statement for the crowds to chant.
Speaker 1:Now, even the image of a palm branch, this was a symbol of national sovereignty in Israel. Palms were actually stamped on coins during the Bar Kokhba revolt in the second century when the Jews took back control of Jerusalem for a time. This is how they claimed their national sovereignty. Even this whole scene of Jesus' entry here, it looks like a political rally. Replete with protesters that would make Donald Trump proud.
Speaker 1:Actually, probably not. He would probably think they were low energy because protests at Trump rallies are huge. But anyway, there is a word in the Greek, parousia. And it often gets associated with things like Jesus' second coming or even the idea of a rapture if you're familiar with that. But at its most basic, it just means one's coming or advent or their arrival.
Speaker 1:Now if a normal person arrives, a parousia is not a big deal. But the coming of a king or in the Jewish mindset, a messiah, this parousia was a very big deal. In fact, in the Greco Roman world, the arrival of a king had very specific elements that were supposed to accompany it. To quote one lexicon, a parousia involved, one, flattering addresses. Two, tributes laid before the king.
Speaker 1:Three, donkeys, both to ride on and for baggage. You always need a good bonk donkey for a good parousia. At number four was the improvement of streets. This was often something like spreading flowers on the road. Think of a makeshift red carpet.
Speaker 1:That was the idea. Number five was the presentation of wreaths or money. They were often woven from palm leaves. And then finally, number six was the feeding of the sacred crocodiles. And as much as I have tried, I have not been able to find anything even remotely like that here in the gospels.
Speaker 1:Apparently, the crocodiles were just for Caesar. But you know the old saying, five out of six ain't bad. Something like that. Right? The point is there are very clear kingly messianic images in this story that are relevant to both the Jews and the Romans who are watching.
Speaker 1:And we see this perhaps most clearly in the idea of Jesus riding a donkey into town. Because not only was that a Roman idea, it also comes from Zechariah chapter nine where the prophet writes, see your king comes to you, vindicated and saved, lowly and riding on a donkey. And Jesus seems to want to make a big deal about this point. Right? In the opening scene in Luke, he tells his disciples, go to the village ahead of you and you will find a donkey.
Speaker 1:Untie it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, why are you untying it? Say, the Lord needs it. And I will admit, that does not sound like the best possible answer for why you are stealing someone's donkey when they ask you. And yet, apparently, in the story, it just seems to work.
Speaker 1:This is the first Jedi mind trick in history. This is not the donkey you are looking for. I don't know. Regardless, the reason this is so important is because donkeys were actually an important symbol of peace in the ancient world. You see, in Rome, you left the city riding on a war horse, but you returned riding on a donkey.
Speaker 1:That's how the king left. That's how Caesar would leave the city. He went out to conquer on a horse, but for Caesar to return to Rome on a donkey, this wasn't a sign of shame. It was actually a sign that your enemies had been defeated and that you were returning as a conqueror. The war was over and it had brought peace.
Speaker 1:Remember, that is the slogan of the Pax Romana. Peace through victory. Peace through war. Peace through conquest. This is what Rome repeated over and over again.
Speaker 1:So you leave the city on a horse bent for war. You return bringing peace on a donkey to show that the battle has been won. And so here, Jesus sets the stage and he enters Jerusalem a week before his death. And the people chant political slogans, They wave political symbols and they recreate the perusia of a coming king. Jesus is proclaiming that peace has arrived.
Speaker 1:Imagine it. A crowd gathers on dirt roads kicking dust up into the glinting sun. And the people so carried away by what is happening. They take their clothes off their backs and they spread them out on the road in front of Jesus along with the palm branches that they have brought to celebrate him. And the familiar clip clop of whose becomes muffled by shirts and shawls and cloaks spread in the dust.
Speaker 1:But as the bend breaks and the road and the city comes into view, you and I, we probably would have spread ours too if we had been there in that moment. There was so much excitement and passion, politics, and national identity wrapped up in this moment. This was hope and change in a way that even 2008 Obama could not conjure. And yet, in the middle of this moment, Luke captures for us one of the most profound and telling moments in Jesus' story. While everyone cheers, and while everyone celebrates, while crowd is gripped in the reenactment of a royal Perusia to welcome this king, verse 41 tells us that Jesus approaches the city and he weeps.
Speaker 1:And we have to be careful here. We have to slow down to catch this moment. Because if you move too quickly past and you keep going right into Jesus' oracle, his prophecy about the city, then you risk missing this profound juxtaposition that Luke has set up for us. Because there is singing and chanting and there are palm branches and symbols of conquest and at the center of this huge raucous rally, Luke says that Jesus sits in the middle of it all and he cries. Have you ever walked into a room full of people and realized that you were completely alone in that moment.
Speaker 1:Maybe you have even felt that walking into this room before. Everyone is talking and chatting and the coffee is being ground and the band is warming up and you don't know anyone. And we can hide in the crowd, but hiding in the crowd is not the same thing as being known. Maybe this was at some point in your faith journey, And and you came to a place where you realized that your path was taking you somewhere the people around you didn't or wouldn't or couldn't go with you. And it's not that you were giving up on things.
Speaker 1:It's not that you were walking away from your faith, but you just knew somehow that your story was shifting. Maybe it was the questions that you were asking. Now maybe it was your personal experience of God. Now somehow it was different than what you had known in the past, but it was unique in a very exciting but also very isolating way. As if you had to keep it to yourself bottled up, because you were alone in this.
Speaker 1:And sometimes, the most lonely place that we can be is surrounded by people who just don't seem to get us. And I'm not sure that we can equate that exactly with what Jesus is experiencing in this moment, but there is a sense in which he knows what it is to be completely alone, misunderstood in the middle of a crowd. And so if you have ever felt misunderstood or misrepresented, If you've ever been unfairly critiqued or maligned, well, this moment, Jesus finds himself at a place where both his most derisive critics and his closest friends have somehow both completely missed his point. His critics are saying this, you're acting like the coming messiah. Stop it.
Speaker 1:This is blasphemy. And Jesus says, I can't. That's who I am. If they don't, the rocks will cry out. But then at the same time his fans are saying, take the next step.
Speaker 1:Conquer the city. Rid us of Rome. Save us now. National sovereignty. That's what we want from you.
Speaker 1:And Jesus says, can't. That's not who I am. I've come in peace. I am not a conqueror. I am the one who overcomes conquest.
Speaker 1:And so in this moment of realization, this isolation, When he realizes both his critics and his friends have missed who he is, it sweeps over Jesus and he begins to cry. It's incredibly profound image that Luke gives us here. Because it's as if everyone is so caught that they just don't have the capacity to see him in the middle of it all. And the truth is every single one of us, we have done this at some point. Every time we picture Jesus, and in your mind, you have someone who looks like me, you know, white with long hair, probably wearing a bathrobe instead.
Speaker 1:Like, I am flattered, but that is completely missing Jesus. You know what Jesus looks like metaphorically and historically? He looks like a Middle Eastern refugee. Every time we assume that Jesus supports our political views, and it doesn't matter whether you are conservative or whether you're liberal, if you know that Jesus would endorse the politician that you voted for, I can guarantee you have missed scriptures, we hear a parable of Jesus, and we don't hear him calling us somehow to change in some way, then we have missed him. And yet the one thing that should give us hope is that remarkably, even as this crowd is divided by their politics and united in their self serving imaginations of the Christ, Jesus is somehow in the middle of it all still filled with compassion.
Speaker 1:Even as he feels the isolation of being at the center of this misplaced party, his heart and his thoughts are somehow focused on those around him. He says this, if only even you had known. If only you had recognized. If only you had chosen peace. And I think that sometimes people wanna read what follows as if it was Jesus pronouncing his judgment on the city.
Speaker 1:As if he's saying, okay, fine. You reject me. You don't get it. Well then, here. Like I will destroy you and your city and your children.
Speaker 1:There is no more mister nice guy. The gloves are off. The king has arrived. Who wants a piece of me? That kind of Jesus.
Speaker 1:And yet that seems just so incongruous with all the imagery that Jesus has carefully constructed for his entrance here. The crowds and the slogans and the palms and the donkeys and the tears that fall and the heart that breaks in the center of it all. You see Jesus says that the days will come when your enemies will build an embankment against you. And they will encircle you and they will hem you in. They will dash you to the ground, you and your children.
Speaker 1:They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. But this is not a threat. That's why it is said through tears and not with clenched fists. This is Jesus explaining what happens when we reject the way of the kingdom. See, this is a royal Perusia.
Speaker 1:The king is returning to his city and his people. And the battle is over and peace has been won. But the question is whether we want it. Because today, Jesus enters Jerusalem and the crowds gather and the people cheer and we are caught up in that celebration. Because we love the Jesus of the party.
Speaker 1:But by Thursday, it will become clear that Jesus is not interested in defeating Rome. And it will become clear that Jesus is not interested in picking up the sword. It will be clear that Jesus is not made in the image of the politics that surround him. And once we realize that his agenda is not our agenda, we have a choice to make. And that is exactly what happens to Jerusalem.
Speaker 1:Once the people realize that this king is not the king that they wanted, they reject him, and he is killed, and they return to pursue their revenge war against Rome. And so in less than a generation, they are encircled and hemmed in and the walls fall and war overtakes the city of Jerusalem. But it is not because God releases his anger. God is the one sitting in the middle of it all weeping. It's because destruction is what happens unless we choose peace.
Speaker 1:And yes, here, this scene is about politics, of empire, and the desire for conquest, but this is just as significant we talk about the very personal interactions in our relationships. Because if you are driven by a desire to crush somebody, then listen to me. That is already crushing you right now. And trust me, there is nothing but more pain down that road. But then again, if you are gripped in that cycle, then you already know that, don't you?
Speaker 1:Because if you get up in the morning and you are seething about someone, Or you go to bed and you can't get what they did to you out of your mind. If you find even happy, joyous moments suddenly being invaded by memories of how someone hurt you, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Because now, somehow, that thing that happened, and I'm not diminishing it at all. But now it's not just a thing that happened, it is a thing that is happening all the time to you over and over again. It's heavy and it weighs on you and it's crushing you.
Speaker 1:And Jesus says that if revenge is what you're looking for, you will never find peace. Listen, the Romans were not good guys, at least not to the Jews. They were oppressive and vindictive. They humiliated people. They treated them as less than human.
Speaker 1:And so this path that Jesus invites us into, this is not about condoning anything. And yet, Jesus stands in the middle of the crowd that is egging us on, encouraging us to fight back, that is telling us it's just about standing up for ourselves. And he says, if only you knew what would bring you peace. Because it is not this. Revenge will not bring peace.
Speaker 1:And payback, as good as it feels, will not bring peace. Evening out the score as much as we might want it, this will not bring peace into our world. What brings peace is when we follow our Lord, and we absorb the hurt, and we cry if we need to, but then we say, it stops here with me. We own it, and we feel it and we refuse to pass it along to somebody else. And trust me, I'm not pretending that that's easy.
Speaker 1:In fact, what brings peace often hurts us even more. Because revenge feels good and it takes the hurt away for a little bit. But to forgive is to name what hurts, to acknowledge what was lost. Forgive is to talk in healing ways about what has happened. It's not to push it away.
Speaker 1:It's not to misremember it. It's not to forget about it. It's to talk about it in healing ways. And so we name it. We acknowledge it.
Speaker 1:We feel it. We cry. Then And we enter into this long slow process of sending it away. And maybe somewhere in your life you have known what would bring you peace. Because you know that fighting back and you know that these fantasies of revenge that you hang on to, you know that battling against Rome on Rome's terms is always strategy.
Speaker 1:But right now, in this moment, you don't feel forgiveness. Can you let yourself off the hook with that today? Because here's the thing. You feel what you feel and you can't change that. Jesus is not asking this crowd to feel warm fuzzy thoughts about their oppressors.
Speaker 1:He's asking them to choose a better way forward. And so if you wake up tomorrow and you are not thinking about that person that hurt you, then celebrate that. Even if it's five minutes before they pop into your head again, take it. Maybe that is a good and healthy step forward. If you realize this week that that person that crossed your mind in your first reaction was not consumed with anger and bile and vengeance towards them.
Speaker 1:And maybe it was just ten minutes before that changed. It's okay. Celebrate that. Maybe that is a healthy step toward sending it away. If you catch yourself in a moment where you are able to let go of that hurt even just for a minute, then take it and celebrate it and thank God for it.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes forgiveness takes a lifetime of choices to send it away, but it is still the path that leads us to peace. And so this week, as we enter into holy week and we cheer Jesus on from the crowd, But sometimes we still want him to be something that he's not. We want him to lead us somewhere he won't. We want him to endorse something he can't. My prayer for you, as we enter into this most holy week of the year, is that you might recognize this day that peace has come for you.
Speaker 1:Not because it's easy and not because it's quick, but because there is a path that leads to destruction, and there is a path that leads to resurrection. There is life waiting for us even in the moments where it seems that there is only death. May you celebrate Jesus coming this week, but may you truly follow his path this holy week. Let's pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:God, help us as we enter into this final stretch before your death resurrection and the story that we are swept up into as you redeem and repair your world? Would you help us to understand that the path that you ask us to walk is one that brings peace and wholeness and health back to us. That the reason you choose to forgive even in the face of those who would persecute you is because this is what brings you life. Life. This is who you are.
Speaker 1:This is who the universe is at the core of its being because it is a reflection of you. And so God, in those moments where we revert back to wanting revenge, where we have fantasies of getting even, where we wish that there was punishment for the ways that someone has hurt us emotionally, physically, maybe economically? Would we instead choose a path where we name it, and we feel it, and we acknowledge it? And we recognize that tears are okay because you cry them. But then we choose to send that away as many times as we need to.
Speaker 1:Because we recognize that this path is not a single step. It is a direction that we choose for the rest of our lives. Would you be present by your spirit, guiding and encouraging us, giving us the strength to choose that path in every moment? May we experience the peace of your resurrection this day. In the strong name of the one whose coming we await and whose resurrection we celebrate.
Speaker 1:We pray. Amen.