Sermon for 2003 April 13 (Palm Sunday), Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalen, Sheet

Bible readings: Philippians 2:5-11, Mark 10:46 - 11:18

I took the liberty of lengthening the Gospel reading set for today to place it in context. So we start with our Lord Jesus in Jericho, setting off to the west on the hilly journey to Jerusalem. He has his disciples and a large crowd with him. And as he has done many times before, he exercises his special power of healing in compassion for Bartimaeus, blind Bartimaeus, who wants to see. Go, said Jesus, your faith has healed you. He is, you may say, on a roll. His popularity is at an all-time high. This great procession comes to the villages outside and above Jerusalem, and Jesus makes his well-prepared ride into the city, on a colt that had been waiting for him, as at least one king of old had done when coming in peace. The crowd spread their cloaks on the road, waved palm branches, cried "Salvation" or "Hosanna", "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord", "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David" Cries which are now ingrained in us as Christians, repeated probably daily in some places at communion services on just about every one of the ¾ million days from that first Palm Sunday to now. And in our small and chaotic way on this lovely spring morning in England we have tried to create some of that atmosphere. The euphoria was such that any negative thinking got short shrift, so Luke in his account tells us that when the Pharisees whinged about what was going on, Jesus said "You’re on a hiding to nothing, complaining about the crowd" In the words from Jesus Christ Superstar which I remember so well from my youth, "If every tongue was still the noise would still continue, The rocks and stones themselves would start to sing". Surely it didn’t get much better than this!

Well… this is why I wanted to extend the reading to remind us what happened next. Two of the most awkward, difficult episodes in all the Gospel story. Jesus curses a fig tree that doesn’t produce fruit even though the poor thing isn’t even supposed to be. And then raging into the Temple, giving vent to his anger at those who are abusing the holy place. I can’t help feeling that if Jesus had spin doctors they would be tearing their hair out, wondering why he was not just safely riding on his popularity, why he was suddenly doing awkward, controversial, hard to explain, even dangerous things, perhaps thinking as they let out a nervous laugh "does this guy have a death wish or something? Many, many people must have started to think as the events of what we now know as Holy Week unfolded: What on earth is going on? Right the way through to when crowds turned against him and shouted "Crucify!"

I wonder what it did feel like to be there? How to make sense of what my senses would have told me? The incredible spectacle in sight and sound and smell of that triumphal entry into Jerusalem, followed by strange events and strange words from a strange man. What did it all mean? And as I wonder about those impressions of Palm Sunday and Holy Week, I cannot help thinking of something closer to our own time, and even closer to home given that most of us have TV, radio or newspapers. I mean of course the war in Iraq. Now I’m certainly not making judgments or drawing direct analogies between people and groups, but I just can’t help seeing in my mind’s eye some reflections of Palm Sunday and Holy Week in the terrible and awesome events of the past three weeks. Let me just share with you some snapshots, you may have others in your mind. The assertion from an American general that all was going according to plan. The criticism of journalists for telling the truth about the suffering of innocent people. The iconic picture of American soldiers trying out the comfy chairs in one of Saddam’s palaces. The cheering crowds waving and welcoming. The desecration of holy places. The tearing down of statues. The courage of our Prime Minister in handling great unpopularity in his own party. The courage of our armed forces. The courage of protesters to remind us all that there may be another way. The basic needs of ordinary people. The Iraqi information minister failing to look over his shoulder as he declared less than a week ago that there were no American forces in Baghdad. The fog of war. The desire for justice. The question of who is in control, and who should be in control. The looting and lawlessness. The feeling "what is going on?"

And what will the history books say? Whatever they say, a few things are certain. They will not say the same things. They may not agree with what we thought has been happening. And, however much zealots from both sides will try to fan the flames, these events will probably not be remembered for 2,000 years because after all in the end we are talking about human behaviour, with all its excesses maybe, but people being people.

So what is different about Palm Sunday? Have these events been written up for us by a devious propagandist who has warped the truth in order to get us to worship Jesus Christ? The answer is No! There is plenty of evidence that what happened really did happen according to a plan, not a human plan but God’s plan, and that the plan was inspired by love. It could be the 2,000 years. It could be the evidence of millions of lives changed and made new for those who have acknowledged Jesus as Lord and King. It could be the harmony of the four gospel writers, some of the clearest and most consistent historical records ever written about anything. For now, I would just like to take what our Gospel said at face value and in particular to look at (or listen to) those cries of the crowd, because in a way that crowd was being prophetic and was proclaiming the basis of the faith we now share.

They shouted three things:

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord". Now a great many terrible things have been done in the name of God, but here was a man claiming the name of the Lord and coming in peace, a man who did nothing but good, who only loved, who only healed. When we do any good thing and love and heal and we do it in the name of the Lord we are part of an unbroken thread that goes all the way to the first Palm Sunday. We are part of the evidence that God has a loving plan for the world.

They shouted, "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David". Jesus was not just part of a plan that went forward in time to the present day, but one which went back in time to the glorious days of King David. He was born into David’s family line and he came to establish a kingdom. It was quite possibly not the sort of kingdom the crowd expected. They could have had the kind of kingdom that simply consisted of overthrowing the Romans and tearing down statues of the Emperor, but a kingdom like that would not have lasted 2,000 days let alone 2,000 years. No, the kingdom Jesus established was much, much stronger because it had to take root in the lives of ordinary people across the world. Over the centuries the two kinds of kingdom have become mixed up – that is human nature, but as long as the Church remains and grows as a force for spreading the good news and living the kingdom not only in words like these but in deeds, the evidence of God’s plan will indeed be there for all to see.

And they shouted, "Hosanna". A wonderful word, it means, "Salvation!" or "God saves". Again, they didn’t know fully what this might mean. They didn’t know that salvation would come through suffering and humiliation and defeat and death. It’s the fact that as Paul wrote to the Philippians, Jesus, [took] the nature of a servant,… and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross. This is the greatest evidence of all, the fact that Jesus got off his colt and walked willingly to the cross, the greatest, most kingly act he could do in solidarity with the weak, the oppressed, the unpopular and the downright wicked, and all of us who need that salvation. It is hard for us to re-create the Palm Sunday experience, but we are in a better position. We have the cross and the resurrection of Jesus, the triumph not just of a popular ministry in the first-century Middle East but the triumph of the path of suffering to take our guilt upon him. What more evidence do we need that everything is going according to plan?

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, thank you for your loving purpose and plan for the world, the plan that the Palm Sunday crowds took part in and that we take part in today. Help us today and into Holy Week to take time to wonder at your love that brought Jesus to us in your name, established your everlasting kingdom and saved us from ourselves.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

© Mike Knee, 2003