Palm Sunday 2018
Palm Sunday is one of the great days in the church calendar. As a child I really enjoyed the opportunity to go for a walk in the service rather than just sit quietly. I enjoyed the visual aid of the Palm cross even if I occasionally only used it to hit people.
For us today Palm Sunday can and should be a day of mixed emotions. It's a day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem knowing what was coming but we too know what is coming. Unlike some of the people who followed it at the time, we know the journey to the cross didn't end there. So it's a day of sadness as we think of the cheering crowds greeting Jesus who somehow went missing only a short time after as Jesus was arrested. It's a day of reflection as we reflect on the reasons for Jesus’s death and our own shortcomings.
However it can still be a day of celebration as we think what Jesus has done for us. That journey to the cross was a journey taken with enormous amounts of love not just for his followers but for every single person.
And Palm Sunday must make us ask where we are putting Jesus in our lives today - for many of that first Palm Sunday crowd, their waving and their cheering seems to have been pretty empty – in a short time they would be amongst a crowd choosing to save a murderer in Barabbas, rather than Jesus…
The problem was that so many of these people had their own idea on what Jesus should be like and what he should achieve. There were those who thought by riding into Jerusalem Jesus was signalling the beginning of his take-over. He would now come triumphantly to overthrow the Romans and the Jewish authorities. Whether by force or by any other method, Jesus would get the sort of power that would change people’s lives… Anything less than this would be seen by many as failure.
And maybe it wasn’t just the crowds who had these sort of feelings – even those closest to Jesus seem confused – we know that Peter would deny even knowing Jesus, we know that Judas Iscariot would betray him – we know that other followers were nowhere to be seen after Jesus was arrested… They too perhaps had expectations of Jesus which, when he seemed to fail to deliver them, led them to doubt or turn away.
The first Palm Sunday and the days that followed said so much about the followers of Jesus – triumphant and supportive one moment, defeatist and denying the next… And that is the great challenge of Palm Sunday today – to consider what sort of category we fit into, because it’s very possible that we too might have expectations of Jesus which are nowhere near anything he promised…
Perhaps we cling to Jesus as some sort of safety net, perhaps as someone who will help to bring us prosperity, perhaps as someone who will manage to take our minds off the problems of our lives or even this world, perhaps as a non threatening friend, perhaps as someone to be admired in books or even stained glass windows…
But that isn’t the Jesus who entered Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday – that Jesus was someone who was confounding all the expectations, he was making a stand against the institutions and standards of the world, he was about to win a better and longer lasting victory than any earthly ruler… Jesus’ earthly journey was nearly over, but he was leaving us with a huge challenge and a huge opportunity.
From that first Palm Sunday Jesus was making a journey that would change the whole of history, and every Palm Sunday we are being reminded that he is asking to make a difference not just in the vastness of history but in the lives of every single person… To follow Jesus it’s impossible, as many try to do, to jump from the adulation of Palm Sunday straight to Easter Day – it’s impossible just to look at the victories, because in between there was the pain of seeming defeat – and that pain is sometimes a pain we may have to endure – not to the same degree of Jesus of course, but following him doesn’t mean an easy ride – it doesn’t mean that there will be no pain or suffering, it doesn’t mean that there will be bags of money or influential positions…
But following Jesus does mean that there will be someone to take us along every step of life’s journey – there will be someone who understands the darkest of times, there will be someone who has experienced every depth that we ever can, and emerged triumphant… And that is the promise Jesus makes to us – not to be the superstitious strength, not to be a lucky mascot, not to be the giver of lots of material gifts, not to be the comforting friend or teacher, but to be THE SAVIOUR, OUR SAVIOUR
And as we recall the love Jesus displayed and continues to display for us all our response has to be to follow his command to love one another as he loves us. That means seeking to love those who seem pretty unlovable at times as well as those who are easy for us to love…
Many people will say it’s naïve to think love can overcome evil, but perhaps those were the sort of people who waved the palms and cheered and clapped as Jesus rode into Jerusalem – those same people who had already abandoned him or turned on him before his death – those same people who missed his glorious resurrection.
Christ commanded us to love – to love him and to love each other – Palm Sunday helps to reveal God’s love to us – Made weak and vulnerable in earthly terms, Christ rode on to death, knowing that there was nothing that could ever stop him from loving.
That is the message his Church today must be preaching above all others, and the message his followers must live.
May we be known as people and a church that can't stop loving - loving God and celebrating his love for us, and loving others as he asks us to do.
The crowds that greeted Jesus on that first Palm Sunday shouted ‘Hosanna’. This was a joyful Aramaic shout of praise, meaning something like, ‘Lord save us’.
Those who shouted it that day knew Jesus was something special. They may well have seen Jesus as God's anointed one from the house of David who the prophets had spoken about and through whom they hoped that all their hopes and expectations would be fulfilled.
They may have been misguided in trying to impose their own impressions of what a Messiah would do but they were right in believing that in Jesus the cry of "Lord, save us," has become a new shout of praise, "Praise God, we are saved."
May we be willing to shout those words and, even more importantly, may we know the truth of those words in our lives. AMEN
For us today Palm Sunday can and should be a day of mixed emotions. It's a day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem knowing what was coming but we too know what is coming. Unlike some of the people who followed it at the time, we know the journey to the cross didn't end there. So it's a day of sadness as we think of the cheering crowds greeting Jesus who somehow went missing only a short time after as Jesus was arrested. It's a day of reflection as we reflect on the reasons for Jesus’s death and our own shortcomings.
However it can still be a day of celebration as we think what Jesus has done for us. That journey to the cross was a journey taken with enormous amounts of love not just for his followers but for every single person.
And Palm Sunday must make us ask where we are putting Jesus in our lives today - for many of that first Palm Sunday crowd, their waving and their cheering seems to have been pretty empty – in a short time they would be amongst a crowd choosing to save a murderer in Barabbas, rather than Jesus…
The problem was that so many of these people had their own idea on what Jesus should be like and what he should achieve. There were those who thought by riding into Jerusalem Jesus was signalling the beginning of his take-over. He would now come triumphantly to overthrow the Romans and the Jewish authorities. Whether by force or by any other method, Jesus would get the sort of power that would change people’s lives… Anything less than this would be seen by many as failure.
And maybe it wasn’t just the crowds who had these sort of feelings – even those closest to Jesus seem confused – we know that Peter would deny even knowing Jesus, we know that Judas Iscariot would betray him – we know that other followers were nowhere to be seen after Jesus was arrested… They too perhaps had expectations of Jesus which, when he seemed to fail to deliver them, led them to doubt or turn away.
The first Palm Sunday and the days that followed said so much about the followers of Jesus – triumphant and supportive one moment, defeatist and denying the next… And that is the great challenge of Palm Sunday today – to consider what sort of category we fit into, because it’s very possible that we too might have expectations of Jesus which are nowhere near anything he promised…
Perhaps we cling to Jesus as some sort of safety net, perhaps as someone who will help to bring us prosperity, perhaps as someone who will manage to take our minds off the problems of our lives or even this world, perhaps as a non threatening friend, perhaps as someone to be admired in books or even stained glass windows…
But that isn’t the Jesus who entered Jerusalem on that Palm Sunday – that Jesus was someone who was confounding all the expectations, he was making a stand against the institutions and standards of the world, he was about to win a better and longer lasting victory than any earthly ruler… Jesus’ earthly journey was nearly over, but he was leaving us with a huge challenge and a huge opportunity.
From that first Palm Sunday Jesus was making a journey that would change the whole of history, and every Palm Sunday we are being reminded that he is asking to make a difference not just in the vastness of history but in the lives of every single person… To follow Jesus it’s impossible, as many try to do, to jump from the adulation of Palm Sunday straight to Easter Day – it’s impossible just to look at the victories, because in between there was the pain of seeming defeat – and that pain is sometimes a pain we may have to endure – not to the same degree of Jesus of course, but following him doesn’t mean an easy ride – it doesn’t mean that there will be no pain or suffering, it doesn’t mean that there will be bags of money or influential positions…
But following Jesus does mean that there will be someone to take us along every step of life’s journey – there will be someone who understands the darkest of times, there will be someone who has experienced every depth that we ever can, and emerged triumphant… And that is the promise Jesus makes to us – not to be the superstitious strength, not to be a lucky mascot, not to be the giver of lots of material gifts, not to be the comforting friend or teacher, but to be THE SAVIOUR, OUR SAVIOUR
And as we recall the love Jesus displayed and continues to display for us all our response has to be to follow his command to love one another as he loves us. That means seeking to love those who seem pretty unlovable at times as well as those who are easy for us to love…
Many people will say it’s naïve to think love can overcome evil, but perhaps those were the sort of people who waved the palms and cheered and clapped as Jesus rode into Jerusalem – those same people who had already abandoned him or turned on him before his death – those same people who missed his glorious resurrection.
Christ commanded us to love – to love him and to love each other – Palm Sunday helps to reveal God’s love to us – Made weak and vulnerable in earthly terms, Christ rode on to death, knowing that there was nothing that could ever stop him from loving.
That is the message his Church today must be preaching above all others, and the message his followers must live.
May we be known as people and a church that can't stop loving - loving God and celebrating his love for us, and loving others as he asks us to do.
The crowds that greeted Jesus on that first Palm Sunday shouted ‘Hosanna’. This was a joyful Aramaic shout of praise, meaning something like, ‘Lord save us’.
Those who shouted it that day knew Jesus was something special. They may well have seen Jesus as God's anointed one from the house of David who the prophets had spoken about and through whom they hoped that all their hopes and expectations would be fulfilled.
They may have been misguided in trying to impose their own impressions of what a Messiah would do but they were right in believing that in Jesus the cry of "Lord, save us," has become a new shout of praise, "Praise God, we are saved."
May we be willing to shout those words and, even more importantly, may we know the truth of those words in our lives. AMEN
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