Palm Sunday 2008

I always think Palm Sunday is quite a strange day – it’s a day that when I was a child I really enjoyed in Church – we got to be a little bit wild with the opportunity to wave around our Palm crosses, or perhaps even hit people with them. It was a day of great celebration. And of course in many ways the event we are commemorating was also a day of celebration with Jesus triumphantly riding into Jerusalem, but there we have a contrast to the joy and the celebration– Jesus was of course riding in to die.

Royalty was entering Jerusalem that day, but it wasn’t the kind of royalty that people had ever seen before. Two thousand years after Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, another visitor came to the city, Germany's last kaiser, Wilhelm II. His entourage was so grand that he had to have the Jaffe Gate in the old city widened so that his carriage could pass through. After the parade had ended, someone climbed up and attached a large sign to the gate. The sign read, "A better man than Wilhelm came through this city's gate. He rode on a donkey."

And as we prepare to journey into Holy Week and remember the sacrifice of Christ we reflect on his humility – the humility Paul described in his letter to the Philippians, "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant and humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

And so Paul was suggesting that our minds should be tuned in with that of Jesus, that is the mind that gave him the courage to speak the message of salvation no matter what it cost.
The mind that opened his eyes so that he could see the people who were being put down or shut out by unjust practices and selfish ambitions on the part of others.
The mind that led him to overturn the tables of the money changers in the temple, led him to cure the blind and the lame.
The mind that brought him to his knees before the disciples so that he could wash their feet on the night of his betrayal.
And the mind of course that led him to the cross where he gave his life.

That mind may often seem well out of our reach – we haven’t always got courage when we should have, we’re not always good at putting others before ourselves, particularly others who we may not like or even know, we’re not always good at taking the path of greatest humility, and it’s not easy to give everything we’ve got for someone else.

But what we can receive is the gift of transformation. Some time ago I read about one of the fastest growing churches in the world. It is called the Winners Church, and according to its leaders, it lives by a motto that comes from America's religious culture. The motto is : "Be happy. Be successful. Join the winners." People seem to flock to that kind of church, but I wonder whether Jesus would, and I wonder how many would be attracted to a Church with a motto such as "Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant," or even, "Those who want to save their lives will lose them and those who lose their lives for my sake, will find them."

They’re difficult phrases to really live out in our lives, and yet this is what the gospel is about. During Holy Week we reflect on the real sacrifice Jesus made – met with palms as he entered Jerusalem the week would quickly change from cheers to cries of hate. But Jesus did it, and he did it for us…

And that is why we celebrate Palm Sunday – it is a day of joy but not just because of the crowds that lined the route into Jerusalem 2000 years ago, but because of the fact that we know the events of the next week were not the end. In the Apostles Creed we say that Jesus “descended into hell" after we say, "He was crucified, dead and buried." He descended into hell. What a powerful acknowledgment that there is no human experience - no height, no depth, no loss, no pain, no apparently God-forsaken place, even the farthest reaches of hell - that Jesus has not entered into.

He descended into hell is immediately followed by the glad affirmation that he rose again from the dead, he ascended into heaven. It is here that the great reversal takes place. The servant becomes Lord. The humiliated one becomes the exalted one whose name is above every name. He ascended into heaven, and on Palm Sunday, and during this Holy Week ahead, we remember that he did not get there the easy way.
What a journey he had. Before the suffering and the crucifying and the dying, he entered Jerusalem and all the city was in turmoil, the gospel of Matthew tells us.

English words are too mild for the original meaning of this word "turmoil." In Greek the word was usually used in reference to violent changes in the weather or earthquakes. In other words, Jesus comes into town and the whole world shakes. A fundamental shift takes place at the heart of things, and nothing is ever the same again.

Today Jesus is still at work in the world, and at work powerfully and he calls us to share in his journey, and share in his work as we share in his victory….

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna to the Son of David. AMEN