Palm Sunday Sermon 2013

Palm Sunday Sermon.           2013.

Readings: Zechariah 9:9-10

                   Matthew 21:1-11

What I would like to do this morning is to look a little more at the story in our readings this morning and then go on to look at the other events we remember during Holy Week.

Try to picture the scene: Jesus on the donkey, riding into Jerusalem, surrounded by people cheering him and waving palm branches. Alongside him are his disciples, his mother, other friends and followers who have come with him from Galilee and no doubt others who would have joined them along the way. Jerusalem would have been packed with Jews, there for the Passover celebrations. Jews living under the oppression of Roman occupation. They would have been waiting, hoping and longing for a King or someone to come and rescue them from their years of suffering, so any shouting about a coming King would have got their hopes up – was this the day – the long-awaited day, finally come at last? Some would have been  have been anticipating  a military-style leader, an aggressor, someone charging in on a horse, waving a sword around, accompanied by soldiers and shouting, looking to overthrow the Romans by force. This gentle guy on the donkey would have seemed a most unlikely candidate.

 As it says in our reading from Matthew, Jesus was riding the donkey to fulfil what the scriptures, written hundreds of years before had said, that the King, the King of the daughters of Zion would come riding on a donkey. Another significant fact was that the day before, he had been at a meal at the home of his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus, where Mary had anointed his feet with a perfume called nard. Nard was no ordinary perfume, it was expensive stuff and was used for special purposes, such as the anointing of a king, in preparation for his buriel as Jesus explained when challenged by Judas. Mary was an astute woman – Jesus knew that and had allowed her to sit and listen when he was teaching a few weeks earlier, something a woman at that time would not normally do. It’s quite possible she was the only one who had really fully grasped what was soon going to happen to Jesus and wanted to prepare him in the best way she could. As well as being a rare and expensive perfume, nard was also a strong-smelling perfume, which, so John’s gospel says, filled the whole of the house with its fragrance. So it’s quite possible that as Jesus rode into Jerusalem he may well still have smelled of that perfume.

 Among the crowds as well as those anticipating the arrival of a military leader, there would have been others who had been watching and waiting faithfully. They would have known their scriptures, those verses from Zechariah which speak of the king riding a donkey and recognised what was happening. You can imagine their excitement.

In a large crowd, things happen fast, there’s an atmosphere of excitement. You are one of many, all wanting the same thing. And then there was no CCTV, no risk of being caught on camera and arrested for causing a disturbance. There is strength in numbers, anything can seem possible. Especially in a crowd consisting largely of people who had been oppressed for years, as we have seen in recent years in various Middle Eastern countries. Lost in the crowd you become anonymous and braver than usual and can shout out loud, hailing someone other than Ceaser as Lord and King, So you can imagine, the crowd from Galilee walking alongside Jesus, others who had gone on ahead of him, recognising who Jesus was, throwing down the palms and their cloaks ahead of him, shouting “Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Once a few people start, others get drawn in, caught up in the heat of the moment. Could this be the day they’ve been waiting for so long? Now imagine the religious leaders and the Romans, wondering what was going on, what’s all the noise? It was busy, crowded and noisy anyway, but it would have been obvious something more was going on, and it seemed to be centred around the guy on the donkey, prompting the question, “Who is this man”? What was he doing, was he leading an uprising, a rebellion, perhaps? This may well have struck fear into the hearts of both the religious leaders and the Romans. Who is this? And the crowds shouted, this is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. You can see how this would set the pattern for the various reactions to Jesus over the coming week as his presence was seen and felt in Jerusalem.

Among those who were present on that day would also be some who were present almost a week later on the day he died. Those who would stay as close by as they could, with him all the way to the end. And also those who would run away in fear and those who would call for his crucifixion and incite others to do the same.

So these verses set the scene for our Holy week, the week in which we look back on those last few days in Jesus life, culminating with our celebration of His resurrection on Easter Sunday. We enter the last week of lent, our time of thinking perhaps more deeply about repentance, about self denial and sacrifice as we reflect on Jesus’ giving of himself in so many ways. Christians observe lent and particularly Holy Week in a variety of ways.

There are those who use the stations of the cross, often various pictures or art work with accompanying prayers reflecting on those final moments from the moment Jesus was arrested right through to the resurrection. It’s a time of deep reflection as we remember the various people he encountered, remember his suffering and death and the pain of his mother and friends and that wonderful moment of joy as the reality of the resurrection dawned upon them.

 For me personally my Holy week journey begins on Palm Sunday, when I will read through the Gospel readings, a little each day from when Jesus has that meal at Mary and Martha’s house and is anointed with the perfume by Mary, then a little further on each day.  On Maundy Thursday, some Christians share in a feet washing service, remembering Jesus’ humility - hands that flung stars into space were the same hands which washed filthy, dirty feet as he took on the role of servant. Our servant king. Others share in a Passover meal on that Thursday, as Jesus himself would have shared what we now call the last supper, with his disciples, the meal which he took and transformed, which we now remember as he told us to, in our service of Holy communion. Then we reflect on the final moments before Jesus was arrested, his moments of prayer, crying out to his Father on the Mount of Olives. Then, there’s Good Friday, a day for looking back on the crucifixion and events leading up to it. We remember this by meditating on those final words from the cross, or by joining in a march of witness, as some of us did last year, along the road and into the town. It’s a very moving event, as we walk through the market place of our day, our silence a contrast to the busyness around us.

This year, during our Lent group, we were focussing on the death of Jesus and Howard mentioned how in the non-catholic churches we always use an empty cross as our symbol for our faith, but the catholics prefer to have a crucifix, a cross depicting Jesus’ crucifixion. We discussed how some non-catholics can find this difficult – because Jesus rose from death, our faith did not end with a dead man on a cross but with a resurrected Lord. But as Howard so rightly said, you can’t have one without the other. Our empty cross would not exist if it had not been cross with the dying Jesus on it first, it would be meaningless. So, much as we would rather not focus too much on that horrible death, it is an essential part of what happened. As adult Christians we need to focus on the suffering, both of Jesus and our own, rather than trying to brush it aside and focus only on the positive. A Christian faith that does not allow for suffering, for pain and grief is unrealistic and is also no good in the face of our own suffering. And to others are suffering and do not know Jesus it must seem even more unrealistic – how can we help those who are suffering if we pretend it does not happen, or try to persuade them that becoming a Christian will instantly take away any pain or problems? Rather, it would be more helpful to know that he understands our pain, that he cares very much and can help us to deal with whatever situations we face in a realistic way. That doesn’t mean either, that there is no place for celebration and for joy – our faith after all is about one who brings hope and life and gives us much to celebrate too.

 Good Friday helps us to focus on the human side of Jesus – the side that makes him different from any other god. He is the only one who came and lived as one of us, born into poverty, then right at the end instead of running away he chose to bear the worst of human suffering in his death on that cross – he is a God who truly understands us and loves us, not a remote being who demands from us but cannot enter in to our experience. Christians have lots of different ways of trying to explain exactly what happened on the cross and why, but we all believe it was an act of love and that because it happened Jesus gained victory over evil and destroyed the power of death. A the moment Jesus died, the curtain in the temple, which the Jews believed hid God from humankind was torn from top to bottom, symbolising the way to God being open and available – gone was the secret “only the high priest once a year can enter” – from that moment all the barriers were removed. Now all have access to God. God is not shut away remotely in a special place which only certain holy people can enter, he is among us all and welcomes all

 Next Sunday will be Easter Sunday when we celebrate that inspite of all the so-called evidence of Jesus’ life being over, the resurrection happened. Love wins and hope lives on.

Every year, we make this journey through the scriptures in some way or other. Although we know how the story ends and what the outcome will be, it’s still a time of mixed emotions, of contrasts, of highs and lows, joy and sadness, death and resurrection all in one week. That journey into Jerusalem would have been such a mixture, here are the crowds, hailing Jesus as king and welcoming him, yet he went forward knowing what lay ahead, already anointed for his buriel. He knew of the coming hardship, yet continued in that way. A day full of a mixture of joy and despair, hope and fear.  

And this is a reflection of our own experiences in life, For we although we all experience times of sadness and uncertainty as well as times of joy, our life together as a church is an expression of our Christian faith a faith which is solid and strong and has stood the test of time, over 2000 years of time. We know that our faith and hope are in relationship, a living relationship with a living Lord who is with us wherever we are. Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus, even though he knew he was going to bring him back to life. I take great comfort in that fact. Each and every one of us here is precious to him. He is compassionate and understands our sadness, our pain. Most of us have only ever lived in times of peace, in a peaceful country, but throughout the world, many face untimely and unpleasant deaths for a variety of reasons. From the moment Jesus was born, he identified with humanity, from the circumstances of his birth, followed by his entry into the muddy waters of the Jordan for Baptism and then facing the grim realities as well as the joys for all of his earthly life right through to his death –he was prepared to suffer right up to his death, the death of a criminal, even though he done nothing wrong. He is a God who understands our suffering because he suffered himself.

Right from the beginning, even going back to the Hebrews in Egypt, God’s people have often faced uncertainty or been challenged or moved from places of safety and security, yet he goes with them and equips them for whatever lies ahead. This is as true for us today as it was for the early Christians and for those today who meet in secret for fear of persecution. We can only see where we are now, but he sees beyond the here and now, ahead into the future. Whatever the future may hold for us as individuals and as a church, we need to continue to trust in our risen Lord, bringing our needs and questions before him in prayer, asking for his peace in our hearts, knowing that he goes before us and will guide and help us as we look to the future.  

Let’s pray together.

Lord, as we look to the future, all its uncertainties, may we know your presence in our lives. Give us confidence to face the future, knowing that you go before us and are with us at all times. Help us to trust you and know your peace in our hearts.      Amen.