Powerful Choices - 4-10-22
Powerful Choices
Ps 118:1-2, 19-29; Luke 19:28-40
Ps 118:1-2, 19-29
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever! Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.” Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Luke 19:28-40
After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
Prayer – Compassionate God, your love finds full expression in the gift of Jesus the Christ. As we enter into Jerusalem, help us to be aware of both the big picture and the small snapshots that bring this week to life for us. Help us to approach this week, aware of how our choices, just like those that Jesus had, are powerful – amen.
Today is the day we have been waiting for, they say when Jesus at last is going up to and then into Jerusalem. We wait differently. Some of his disciples have been looking forward to this day thinking, “When are we at last going to go up to Jerusalem and seize power, run out the Romans, set up a new King of David government, one where you will be enthroned with honor and glory? When are we going to Jerusalem? Can’t wait.”
Others of his disciples, maybe the most thoughtful and prudent among them, were filled with fear and consternation at the inevitable approach of this day. “When will you at last go up to Jerusalem, even though you know that’s dangerous and even deadly? The Romans and the temple authorities have been allowing you to preach, teach, and heal out here in the hinterland. But in the capital city, the center of the world, Jerusalem? No way. Even though you know it’s dangerous to go to Jerusalem, we know you are determined to do so, no matter what.”
And when Jesus finally enters Jerusalem, he is met, not simply by children waving palm branches but by a mixed bag of responses. Isn’t that always the way it has been with Jesus? People react to him in very different ways. Many just don’t know what to make of Jesus. If Jesus is news about who God is and what God is up to, is the news good or bad?
Nearing Jerusalem, Jesus tells a couple of his disciples to go secure him a colt to ride in on. “Oh, we get it,” they must have said. “You are going to have a grand parade into the city. But a ‘colt’? That’s no way for the mighty Messiah to enter.” If questioned about the colt, the disciples are to respond, “The master needs it.” What? God’s anointed one, the Messiah, King of Kings needs something? And he needs a couple of ordinary people to do it for him? What’s going on here?” Though the disciples don’t understand, they do just what Jesus tells them. Surprise, they find a colt tied and waiting for them, just as Jesus said. Jesus knows in advance what’s going to happen. When the colt rental person says, “What are you doing?” the disciples respond, telling the man just what Jesus told them to say, even if they don’t have the foggiest idea what Jesus is up to much less who he actually is.
We call it Palm Sunday because maybe they were palm branches that were thrown into the road in front of him as he approached the city – a kind of poor man’s red carpet treatment, a kind of homemade ticker-tape parade. Just branches is all the record states, but maybe palms is what they actually were, and in case it’s as palms that we remember them; and all over Christendom people leave church with palm leaves of their own to remember him on this anniversary of his last journey into Jerusalem. Perhaps some people were so carried away by the procession that they took off their cloaks and spread them on the road in front of him along with the branches, so that the clip-clop of the hooves of the colt was muffled by shirts and shawls and cloaks spread across the dusty road.
As the procession begins, Luke says, ‘They praised God with a loud voice because of all the mighty things they had seen.’ The disciples praised God using the same words that one were intoned when Israel crowned a new king – “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.” They have seen some mighty works of Jesus along with miraculous signs and wonders. This one on the back of the colt in the new king, coming in mighty triumph to inaugurate the new King of David government – hallelujah!!!
Well, maybe not because just on the other side of town Pilate was making a grand entrance for the Passover week as well. Columns of soldiers, proud and prancing steeds with the powerful Roman elite riding as if Kings. Talk of Jesus being ‘king’ and welcomed into town as Pilate is also entering town is sure to bring down the wrath of Rome upon the Jewish city. Who was the more powerful rider that fateful day? Who ended up having more control as the two men rode into town? In just a few days, the one of the back of a colt that the disciples and others praise as a new, powerful, mighty king will be hanging from a cross, wearing a crown of thorns, mocked as “King of the Jews.” What does all this mean? Why did Jesus follow this path, knowing full well it ended up with his death on a cross? Why didn’t he save himself instead of saving us?
This is a story fraught with powerful choices. Did the disciples wonder what was going on in what Jesus told them to do – what if by divine arrangement they didn’t connect and they had been caught stealing a colt? Did they suspect that Jesus was playing into OT anticipations; and if so, what was going to happen in the end? And if they did, what did they make of that? The disciples had laid their cloaks down as Jesus rode into Jerusalem, celebrating his triumphant entry, while not too far away, Pilate road a great steed into the cheers of many – whose entrance was more powerful? Did the disciples really have a clue, even though Jesus had consistently tried to prepare them for this week; did they really understand the magnitude of his choice to enter into the city for Passover? Did the disciples think that Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem would signal the political victory of the long expected Messiah?
It seems to me that there may be far more questions about this story than answers. The truth of what we call Palm Sunday is that this is not a simple celebration that happened a long time ago to give present day Christians a chance to whoop it up with some palm fronds every year a week before Easter.
You see, it’s easy to preach on Palm Sunday when we sing about it in church to make the whole story look like a clear-eyed, straight forward set of events. It’s too easy to picture the disciples as moving through all this with heads-held-high confidence and swagger, to treat Palm Sunday as a big bright spot in the midst of all the Lenten darkness and ahead of the darkness of Holy Week, which this Sunday kicks off of course.
But think about it for just a minute with me – the world, indeed, the cosmos, it is not too grand a thing to allege – was teetering on the brink of the most momentous event since the Big Bang. The very Son of God was about to be handed over, betrayed, abused, murdered. There was, in a sense, going to be a death in God within a few days. The universe was about to turn the corner from endless darkness back toward the Light that is God – the Light that darkness cannot overcome. What all was at stake cannot even be overstated or overestimated. The very hosts of heaven – and maybe of hell for all we know – were quite literally holding their breath to see what choices were going to be made.
Think of a time when you were anticipating something big. And think of a time when just how that big thing was going to go was by no means a 100% clear to you. Remember that knot in the pit of your stomach as you thought about your choice and how it was going to impact your life – if it went well or not. Remember how tense you felt, how jumpy you were, how now and then someone would catch you staring off into space with a couple of fingers held up over your lips as you were totally lost in thought. You and I both know that feeling.
Now transfer all of that onto the canvas of this story. See that kind of nervous anxiety and wondering in Jesus, in the disciples, in the whole cosmos, for heaven’s sake. What Palm Sunday celebrates and observes is not that simple, it is not neat, tidy or straightforward. The air fairly crackles with electricity as the characters of this grand drama sense that some powerful choices need to be made. And if we can pick up on those aspects of this story, we may also pick up on what makes Holy Week so momentous, so amazing, so jaw-dropping powerful – it is about the choices that get made.
Jesus knew that the time for his hour has come – that is, that the time to make a powerful choice between saving himself and being a Savior has come. He knows that the Jewish and Roman leaders were leery of his power and thus were out to get him. One should never forget that within that crowd that was waving palms and singing out Hosannas also included those who were not celebrating his appearance but were also planning to destroy him while he was in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. So his willingness to ask his disciples to find a specific colt for him to ride into Jerusalem was the first of many powerful choices that Jesus made that week – he knew where his week was going to end up – and still he made the powerful choice to move towards the cross, rather than away from it.
I am particularly reminded today as we anxiously watch what is happening in the Ukraine and the powerful choices President Zelenskyy has made about staying in his homeland to lead his people in the fight against the Russian military. Of the thousands of everyday citizens who have chosen to take up arms to defend their democracy against the Soviet invasion. Of the families who stayed and stood up to the atrocities that have been happening every day as the Russian military tries to conquer many of its own family members.
Today is Palm Sunday and every year as we enter Holy Week I am reminded, deeply and powerfully, of the choices that Jesus made that fateful and faith-full week. To send his disciples to get a colt; to ride that colt into Jerusalem, knowing full well that by the end of the week his death was going to be a reality; to kneeling before his twelve disciples, washing their feet like the servant to humankind that he was; to sit down with his twelve closest friends for a final meal, knowing full well that one of his friends was betraying him before the night would be over, knowing full well that his most fervent disciple would deny him three times before the night was over; to serving his betrayer and denier the bread and cup that was part of their Passover celebration; to going to the Garden one last time and sweating blood knowing that God was not going to deliver him from the miracle of death; to submitting himself to his betrayer’s kiss; to humbling himself before civil and religious authorities; to the humiliating scourging that literally tore the flesh from his bones; to the inhuman, lurching, stumbling faith walk with a cross hanging from his ravaged body; to being hung from a criminal’s cross; to asking God to forgive; to granting forgiveness to a broken human being hanging by his side – ALL POWERFUL CHOICES. That is what Palm Sunday means to me.
What might it mean to you as we gather this day? What powerful choices are out there for you and for me to make on a daily basis? Is it what color shirt and tie to wear to work that day? Is it whether to study scripture or religious texts or hope that God will give you the correct answers? Is it to do the best you can to see the homeless person as a precious child of God, to see the Mexican immigrant working in your neighbor’s yard as a neighbor rather than a ‘dirty Mexican?’ Is it to lurch and stumble faithfully through each day, trying to be a faithful person on all days that end with ‘Y’ rather than just for an hour on Sunday? Each of these can, and perhaps should be, powerful choices. Palm Sunday isn’t about the celebration because the Hosannas only lasted a few minutes. Palm Sunday is about recalling the powerful choices that Jesus made for you and for me and for all people – may we see those choices in a new light, a transforming light – thanks be to God – amen.