Sermon 4-13-03
Palm/Passion Sunday
Palms and Crosses - Mark 11:1-11, Mark 14:1-15:47
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!
Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple, and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
Palm Sunday. Passion Sunday. Christ's triumphant entry. Christ's humbled and suffering-filled death. The crowds shouting, Hosanna, which means, save us - hosanna, hosanna! The crowds shouting, Crucify him, crucify him. Today is a day of contrasts - the jubilation of the entry into Jerusalem, the horrible pain of the cross. How do we get from the palms to the crosses? What happens to bring us so far in so short a time? Today we receive crosses made of palms - perhaps the most ironic of our Christian symbols. The very palms we use to welcome Christ into our midst become also the instrument of death. It is with the cross that Jesus is killed. And yet these crosses have become for us a welcome symbol, a symbol of faith, a symbol of life. How did we get from Palm Sunday to the Passion and beyond to Easter so quickly?
It's tempting to focus on the joy of this day and the joy of Easter Sunday and gloss over the pain and suffering the takes place in the week in between. Why do we need the suffering and death when we know that the resurrection comes so soon after? Why do we have to go through all these trials, when the story ends the same way every year, with Christ triumphing over death?
It's certainly easier to have Palm Sunday and Easter and skip the week in between. We like to imagine ourselves in the joyous procession into Jerusalem. We love to hear the exuberant music play, we love the pageantry of the choir processing and we love to see the palm branches waving. We also love the flowers that will fill our sanctuary next Sunday, and we enjoy seeing the bright Easter clothes and feeling like yes, perhaps, spring has come at last. But to put ourselves in the shoes of the other players of this Holy Week is not so easy or so desirable. To shout the words with the crowds - Crucify him, crucify him - stick our throats, make us squirm in our seats, make us react with Peter, But Jesus, we would not deny you like this! It is not I. We would not crucify you like this.
This past week at chapel at Drew, our choir director had us sing, "Were you there?" But instead of singing, were you there when they crucified my Lord, we sang, were you there when we crucified our Lord. It was hard to do, hard to accept the responsibility for Christ's crucifixion, even though next week I will eagerly accept the gift of Christ's resurrection. Surely it is not I? Can it be that it is the same crowds who receive Jesus with palms that then reject him with the cross so short a time later? What change has taken place to go from palms to crosses? One traditional proverb quips - today's rooster is tomorrow's feather duster. Are we so fickle? Unmoved or uncomfortable by Christ's message of good news for all that we will do anything not to have to heed his teaching? Will we put him to death rather than change our ways?
One pastor writes, "Violence against the innocent so fills our news that we rarely wince when we read or hear of child abuse, battered spouses, genocide, starvation, assassination and illegal incarceration. Dorothy Sayers describes this psychic numbing: "It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear that story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all."
The pastor continues with a personal confession, "I know that I can stand in here and sing praises to Jesus one day, and walk by on the other side of the road as he lies in a gutter the next. I know that I can be lost in wonder and praise at the gracious mercy of God one day, and then turn around and make the most callous judgment of someone the next day, just writing them off, rejecting them entirely without showing any sign that the grace I have been shown has begun to rub off on me. I know that some days I can sing in here "Brother, sister let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you," and then walk out and treat you as though I was born to rule and you're lucky to have me in your company." Perhaps we have similar confessions to make. Some days we are the ones who wave the palms, but other days we are the ones who crucify Christ. That is why, year after year, we find ourselves in this place - we are an Easter people, but we are people of Palms and Passion as well.
Let us not forget the life cycle of these palm branches. Today they make crosses for us. Signs of celebration, signs of crucifixion, signs of resurrection. But these same palms will also be burned into ashes, ashes that are used on Ash Wednesday, when we begin our Lenten journey again next year. The cycle is ongoing and repeating, because without this cycle of death and ashes in turn with our celebrations of resurrection, it is too easy to forget how in need of God's grace we are. It is easy to pretend that we have nothing to do with Christ's crucifixion, and everything to do with his resurrection. It is to easy to claim that it was the others who put him to death, that it is the others who fail to live and love as Christ calls us to.
We are here, as the palm branches are waved in joy. Let us also be here, and take responsibility, when Christ is crucified for us, by us, because of us. For it is only by taking in the fullness of Jesus' humanity, the completeness of his journey through life and death that we can truly gather together in celebration on Easter.
Hosanna! God save us! Amen.