“Blessed Is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord”
A Sermon Based on Mark 11:1-11
Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, March 24, 2024
Palm Sunday is a wonderful celebration. We decorate the church with palm fronds, and wave them during the service. We enjoy the children and the choir processing in with their palms. We remember that day so long ago when Jesus entered Jerusalem, riding on a donkey’s back, how people waved branches in the air and threw down their garments before his path, shouting, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” Everyone loves a parade, and this must have been quite a spectacle.
The tradition of waving palms to honor the arrival of an important person is still observed in many African cultures. In Zambia I saw the road leading into a village lined with palm branches. I knew that the village was preparing for the arrival of an honored guest, maybe traditional royalty, or a political leader.
This past October when I visited a church in Eastern Cameroon, colorful cloths had been placed on the ground for our group to walk on, starting outside the church and leading all the way up to the altar.
This ancient custom is referred to in 2 Kings 9 when Jehu is anointed king – “they all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps, and they blew the trumpet and proclaimed, ‘Jehu is king.’”
Jesus’ triumphal entry is a beautiful and moving scene, but Mark makes plain what the people want, when they shout “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” They are calling for a renewal of the ancient realm of King David, and freedom from their Roman colonizers. As unrealistic as these expectations might seem, people believed in the coming of a Messiah who would throw off the yoke of Rome’s oppression and restore the former glory of Israel, and they thought Jesus was the one to do that. “Hosanna” literally means “Save us, we pray! Please deliver us!” There is no doubt what the crowd meant: They wanted to crown Jesus as their king.
But is that what Jesus intended? And what kind of king? Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was a prophetic act that showed the people what kind of king he was. Yes, he allows people to welcome him with palm branches and cloaks strewn on the road, yet he brings no army.
He wears no weapons, no helmet or sword. He is not dressed in splendid robes or followed by a retinue of courtiers and slaves. Common folk and little children form his entourage. Most telling of all, he enters riding on a young donkey. Would a Roman emperor have ridden on a donkey? No way. He would have chosen a mighty war horse, or a golden chariot. Jesus would have known the words of the Prophet Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey…[and] he shall command peace to the nations.” Jesus was proclaiming that yes, he was a king, but he came as the Prince of Peace, not a worldly ruler.
But how often do we pin our own hopes and expectations on God? Like the people of Jerusalem who wanted to make Jesus their earthly king, we, too, have our own agendas, our own time-tables, our own ways in which we think God should act. If we see Christ as someone who comes merely to solve all our problems, to answer our prayers in exactly the way we want, we may be sorely disappointed.
Like the people of Jerusalem, we are the ones who need to join Jesus in fulfilling God’s plans for the salvation of the world, not the other way around. Salvation means healing – not just forgiveness from sins, but making whole that which is broken, healing the rift between humanity and God. This can’t be done by an earthly king, but only by Jesus Christ.
Before the triumphal entry, Jesus had told his disciples at least three times what his purpose was for going to Jerusalem. In Mark chapter 8 we read, “Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again.” What was the response? “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” Peter definitely had his own plans for Jesus, and suffering and dying were not part of them! This is when Jesus says the famous line: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” In the paraphrased version, The Message, Jesus simply says to Peter, “You have no idea how God works.”
About a week later, after the Transfiguration, Jesus again tells his disciples, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” Mark adds that the disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was saying and were afraid to ask him. Side note: we don’t need to be afraid to ask God for help if we don’t understand something God is doing in our lives. The disciples definitely did not understand, because in the next few verses, we read that they had been arguing among themselves about who was the greatest. Jesus brought a little child before them and said, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.” In the very next chapter Jesus says: “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” In effect, Jesus was saying, “It’s not by might and power that God’s kingdom will come, but rather through loving trust in our heavenly Father.”
But the disciples, still didn’t get it. Several days later, as they were on their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, a third time Jesus tries to tell them what’s coming: “Listen,…we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans. They will mock him, spit on him, flog him with a whip, and kill him, but after three days he will rise again.” Immediately after this, James and John ask Jesus, “When you sit on your throne in your glorious Kingdom, we want you to let us sit with you, one at your right and one at your left.” The irony of their request is inescapable – just after Jesus says he must suffer and die, James and John ask to be given places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom. Indeed, they have no idea how God works – and no idea what is happening.
Lest we be too harsh on them, let’s look into our own hearts. How often do we watch a movie where a super-hero conquers evil by killing the bad guy? Or an army led by courageous rebels defeats the evil empire? I enjoy watching movies like this, too, but they are insidious. We can easily internalize the idea that violence is justified to attain our goals. Theologian Walter Wink has called this “the myth of redemptive violence,” and he claims that it is “the dominant religion in our society today.” This is not God’s way. Both Jewish and Christian thought have repudiated this myth over and over again, but it is accepted as truth in our culture, as it was in Bible times. Indeed, the creation story in Genesis is a direct repudiation of the violent creation stories of other ancient cultures, in which violent deities fought among themselves and killed each other for supremacy. Look up ancient Greek or Babylonian mythology for examples. Rather, Genesis asserts that a good and loving God created the world as good, and that evil and violence entered later, with humanity’s disobedience to this loving God.
Knowing humanity’s preference for power plays, we can understand more easily how that cheering crowd of Palm Sunday became the jeering mob of Good Friday, shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Jesus did not turn out to be their conquering hero. Did people think he would call down the armies of heaven to kill the Romans? Would God do that? Or do we worship a God who loves even our enemies, a God who would later send the apostle Paul to preach in Rome, the very heart of the evil empire of that day, converting even the Roman guard, the centurion Cornelius, and who would preach a gospel that would one day convert the Emperor Constantine himself? We have so much to learn. The way of life runs through the cross, not the crown. The cross transforms everything. God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. The world fixes its hope on power and might, but throughout history God has called his faithful people to trust in him. As it says in Psalm 20:7: Some trust in war chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Thirty years ago this year, apartheid fell in South Africa. Prior to that time, I worked one summer as an assistant to a South African professor who had emigrated to the U.S. He told me that if apartheid ever ended, there would be a blood-bath in South Africa, such as no one had ever seen. He was certain of it. That is why he and his family had left. Yet no such thing happened. Why?
Nelson Mandela, who led the fight against apartheid, had spent 27 years in prison for advocating an end to apartheid, and his partners, such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, followed the way of peace. No one would have blamed them had they advocated violence against a regime which had dehumanized and oppressed Black people for decades, but as Christians, they refused to shed blood for their cause. As a result of four years of difficult negotiations, the South African government finally accepted the rights of Black citizens to enjoy the same rights as Whites, including the right to vote and to hold office. Mandela, by then a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, became the first democratically elected president of South Africa in 1994.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” Two thousand years before, Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans: But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us…
For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
This week as we remember the events that led to Christ’s crucifixion, let’s remember that a loving God reached down to us, who were at one time God’s enemies, to reconcile us to Himself through the death of his Son, Jesus Christ. As we celebrate Christ’s Triumphal Entry this Sunday, let’s ask ourselves, “What kind of king do we want?” One who follows the ways of this world, a king who seeks power and domination? Or a humble king who gave himself as a sacrifice for us all to be reconciled to God and to each other; who gave himself for the healing of the world, Jesus, who invites us to follow him to the Cross, a Cross that transforms all of life, and leads us finally to the Resurrection. Amen.
©Deborah Troester 2024