Sermon of 1 April 2007, Palm Sunday
************************************

Readings: (Liturgy of the Palms: Luke 19:28-40), Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:14-23:56


There is a great converging series of stories that come together in today’s readings. As Jesus moves from Jericho into Jerusalem, shares his last meal with his disciples, pleads with God in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, is arrested, tried, brought before Pilot and Herod, condemned, crucified, and laid in the tomb, the focus of the story switches to incorporate all of the various key influences from the three years of Jesus’ ministry from the time of his Baptism to his fateful meeting with Pontius Pilot.

From Bethany to Jerusalem the story is primarily about the disciples and other followers of Christ, intent on setting him on the Davidic throne and overthrowing Roman occupation of Israel. From the entry into Jerusalem to Jesus arrest the story’s focus splits between Jesus last supper with the disciples, Judas’ betrayal of Christ and the disintegration of Jesus’ support from his closest disciples (especially Peter), Christ’s very human struggle with what he was about to face, and the ongoing conflict between the religious authorities and Jesus which comes to a head with Jesus’ so called “trial” before the Sanhedrin. From the dawn following Jesus’ arrest through his crucifixion, the story becomes the Roman trial and execution of a Jewish political despot. At the last, this is a story of faith. The late-found faith of the centurion contrasting with the painful absence of Jesus’ followers at the foot of the cross (who stood watching from a distance), and of a compassionate member of the Sanhedrin who requests Jesus’ body from Pilate for a proper burial as Jesus’ female disciples follow at a distance to see where he is laid so that they can prepare spices and ointments for his embalming after the Sabbath day.

What is particularly amazing to me is how different the story looks from each of these perspectives. When Jesus approached Jerusalem to the shouts of praise and blessing of his adoring followers, he had no false pretense of what was going to happen. He had tried to tell his disciples on at least three different occasions before arriving here that he would be handed over to suffering and death when they came to Jerusalem. This was not a “triumphal” entry of the messianic King of Israel who would take the throne of David and usher in a time of peace and prosperity. This was a funeral march in the making, and Jesus alone knew what it all truly meant. His last meal with the disciples was as the experience of a modern death-row inmate being given his last meal. Making a final attempt to explain what was going to happen, he tells them one more time that he’s going to suffer, and what they must prepare to do in his absence. Foretelling his own betrayal, he heads out to the garden to pray.

Here we must draw on some of the other gospels to fill in just how dire this last hour of freedom is for Jesus. Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus was “deeply grieved, even unto death,” that he was grieved to his very core. In deep despair he throws himself to the ground and prays out of this grief and despair – pleading three times for some other way to complete God’s will but ultimately submitting to God’s will over his own human fear and apprehension. The expanded version of Luke’s gospel states that an “angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength” and that “In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” Jesus, the perfect hybrid of God and Human, breaks down in a final moment of human weakness in the face of bitter suffering and sacrificial death. Then, accepting his fate, he meets Judas’ betrayal with nothing more than an admonition for betraying him with the same kiss of peace that we share with one another every Sunday. The customary greeting of trust and mutual good-will between friends.

Stoic throughout his trial, Jesus simply recognizes the words of his accusers – “you say so,” or “so you have said,” or “as you say.” He takes pause twice – once to meet Peter’s eye at the cock’s crow and again to speak to the “daughters of Jerusalem.” Deserted by his followers at this point, Christ’s words seem raw and harsh as he recognizes that unless his disciples and followers turn again to his teachings after he is gone, everything he taught would be lost.

Christ’s last three statements remind us of his amazing capacity to forgive and show compassion, as well as his amazing and abiding faith that remains unto the very end. At his crucifixion, abandoned, beaten, and nailed to his cross, he prays on behalf of his executioners, his absent friends, his followers who became some of the very people who demanded his death when he refused to be what they expected: “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” To the thief who shows repentance and faith, he promises the same kingdom that he has spent his whole ministry proclaiming. And with his final breath, he commends his spirit to God.

The same story from the disciples’ standpoint is the penultimate moment of their three-year campaign to gain momentum in the movement to put messiah on the throne in Jerusalem. This is the moment they and all of Christ’s followers have awaited. With shouts of exultation and praise, they welcome Christ the King to the gates of the city, eagerly anticipating the expulsion of their roman occupiers and the promised reign of God’s chosen messiah. In their quest, they fulfill prophecy by bringing Jesus the colt that it was foretold messiah would ride into the city. At their celebration dinner with Jesus, they share the bread and cup with their teacher, master, and Christ. Amidst some disturbing talk about betrayal and Judas storming out, they talk about which of them is the greatest and who will sit beside the great throne of David when the battle is done and Jesus is crowned. Jesus continues to confuse them with words of impending doom. Peter assured him that he would be there fighting by his side to the very end, even if they must endure a loss and face death, he would be ever be his champion. Others were similarly quick to reassure their doubting savior that they would support him to the very end and produced swords to demonstrate their readiness for the coming struggle.

Jesus had been gloomy before. The disciples remembered the other times when he spoke of impending doom. He seemed almost inconsolable at those times, even likening Peter to Satan when he tried to reassure Jesus that God would bring them victory. They struggled to support their distressed friend, grieving for his doubts and accompanying him to the garden to pray. In their own grief they fell asleep, weary from worrying about Jesus and the coming battle. Suddenly their was a crowd coming, led by Judas, one of their own – the one Jesus said would betray him. They brandished their swords, seeking to protect Jesus while the rest of his followers were absent. Peter cut off the ear of the High Priest’s slave with a quick slash of the sword and prepared himself for the onslaught. The few disciples present were shocked when Jesus told them to put down their swords and healed the High Priest’s Slave. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be! This wasn’t what was to become of Messiah! The other disciples fled as Jesus was bound and led away, but Peter followed at a distance, speechless, hurt, and confused. He had to figure out what was going on.

When the crowd who had abducted Jesus lit a fire in the courtyard of the High Priest’s house, Peter crept near and warmed himself, trying to gain some information on what was going on. Fearful of being chased away or apprehended himself, and not being able to come to Jesus rescue, he denied a servant girl who remarked that she thought she had seen him with Jesus. Again later, another passerby suggested the same. Peter denied again, trying to remain inconspicuous and anonymous. Finally he was confronted by another who recognized him as a Galilean. He loudly denounced his knowledge of Jesus, desperately trying to return to his thoughts and plans. It was at that moment that the rooster crowed. Peter looked up into the eyes of Jesus and the reality of what had happened came crashing down on him. He, like the other disciples, abandoned Jesus, ran off into the remains of the night, weeping bitterly.

The next day, the tattered remains of Jesus once proud followers received the news that Jesus would be killed by crucifixion. Shocked to their very core at this news, their last hopes of Jesus’ messianic reign were crushed. Anonymous and unnoticed by their patriarchal society, some of the women amongst his closest followers met him along the road from Pilot’s courtyard to the place of the skull. They wept bitterly, wailing for him until he turned and addressed them. In their despairing grief, they could not understand all that he said, but it was something about not crying for him, but for themselves and the state of the world that would crucify God’s own messiah. Away in the distance, they caught sight of the rest of the disciples and some other followers of Jesus. They went and joined them, watching silently and bitterly from a safe distance away. They were shamed, crushed, confused, hopeless. How could their faith have come to this? Dejected and afraid, only the women remained still watching when a member of the Sanhedrin came and took Jesus body away for burial. They followed him at a distance, planning to come back after the Sabbath to anoint him for his proper final rest. Seeing where he was laid, they too finally returned home to observe Sabbath and ponder in their hearts all that had happened this dark and bleak day.

As for the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Priests, this was the last straw. Jesus had been causing a raucous now for what must have been the past three years. Their position with the Roman authorities was already one of privileged disregard, and Jesus’ teachings and gathering of multitudes of Jews and even some non-Jews had certainly drawn attention to them. If Jesus previously hadn’t strained the deference afforded to Jews under Roman occupation, certainly this mob scene at the very gates of Jerusalem would! Who was this man anyway? He challenged their authority openly amongst the people and in the synagogues, he mocked them, called them hypocrites, disobeyed Jewish laws of ritual and purity, spoke with authority about scripture, and claimed to have authority over sin, sickness, and even death! He had frequently endangered their already tenuous autonomy under Rome, and this was the last straw. “Tell your disciples to be quiet!” they pleaded with him to no avail. (He made some snide comment about rocks crying out if the people were silenced.) At last they received a break when one of Jesus own disciples came to his senses and offered them inside information on where and when to find him vulnerable.

Everyone knew that Judas was a conflicted man. Some called him a thief, others thought he had a demon tempting and torturing him. Some just thought that he was afraid Jesus really might try to start a revolution against Rome, which he didn’t believe they could win. Whatever the cause, Jesus knew his heart and called him on it at dinner that night. Staggering under the accusation that hit so close to home, he had left enraged and gone straight to the temple authorities. Later he realized that he was almost solely responsible for Jesus being tortured and crucified. He tried to repent of his decision, which at the time had seemed like the only thing to do. If he didn’t have demons before, they certainly plagued him for the rest of his short life. He was found dead a short time after Christ’s death. Some speculated he had bought the field he died in with the money he’d been given for betraying Jesus, others that he had hanged himself out of grief and remorse.

None of that mattered to the temple authorities. They gladly accepted Judas’ help and followed him straight to that little garden on the Mount of Olives. True to his word, Judas walked up to Jesus and kissed him, signaling the authorities to arrest Jesus, which they gladly did. Unable to find reasonable cause for his arrest, they finally accused Jesus of blasphemy and demanded that he be executed. This would certainly appease Rome as well as ridding them of this menace to their authority and way of life. Nicodemus and an Arimathean named Joseph protested and voted against their decision, but the wisdom of the council ultimately prevailed and Jesus was taken to the Roman authorities to carry out the sentence of death.

For some reason the Roman authorities seemed reluctant to carry out the sentence. The governor, Pilate, shuffled him off to Herod, who happened to be in town, but Herod sent him back, agreeing that he was certainly no threat to them, nor guilty of anything worthy of the punishment for insurrectionists and the other lowest criminal dregs. Pilot, himself reluctant because of a warning from his wife of a dream she’d had, recognized the crowd’s need for blood and had Jesus flogged. Trying then to release Jesus, the temple authorities incited the crowd to demand for his crucifixion, which finally Pilate agreed to carry out for them, having first washed his hands of Jesus’ blood. They all mocked and derided Jesus, and the temple authorities were all that much more sure of their actions because of Jesus’ apparent inability to save himself. Surely if he were the messiah, God would not have allowed this to happen to him.

Throughout the proceedings, the long walk to Golgotha, the placing of the cross on some hapless schmuck in town from Cyrene, the meeting of the women at the gate of the city, and the crucifixion, a Centurian silently and vigilantly held his post. A man of few words, he was yet somehow moved by this particular execution. Who was this man who prayed to his God for his executioners’ forgiveness? Whom even the most base and wretched criminal crucified on his right stood up for with his dying breath? Who gave his own last breath in praise of the same God who allowed him to come to this end? And why was the crowd so somber as they departed, with far off bystanders weeping to see this man die? He certainly does not die as others do. Even humiliated, broken, and hung up to die, he somehow commands respect and dignity. And with that thunder and the ground quaking at the very moment he died… could it be? Oh my God, what have we done.

Each of the strands of this story has something to teach us about faith, each has something to contribute to our understanding of God, each holds some key to God’s purpose. But perhaps the most important lesson we can take away from our readings this Sunday is simply the willingness to let the story unfold within us. We are each the disciples, striving to understand and yet missing the point. We are each the council elders trying to do what is best and blindly reaching out in faith that what we have done can be used to further God’s will, we are each Pilot confronted with impossible choices that no matter what we choose cannot appease the situation, we are each Nicodemus, struggling in the dark to try to find our way to Christ, we are each Joseph of Arimathea, standing up for what is right and just, and eking out what little justice we can control, we are each the centurion, mysteriously finding God in the most unlikely places, and we are each even Judas – struggling against our own personal dilemmas of faith.

As we enter into Holy Week and move toward the great triumph of Christ’s resurrection, it is with hope that we take on the story of Christ’s passion so that we can also take on the story of his resurrection. Let us watch and pray as the story continues to unfold within us and Christ’s triumph becomes our triumph.

Amen.