Sunday April 5th: Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday
Lectionary Readings:
Palm Sunday: Isaiah 50: 4-9
Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29
Philippians 2: 5-11
Matthew 21: 1-11
Passion Sunday: Isaiah 50: 4-9
Psalm 31: 9-16
Philippians 2: 5-11
Matthew 26: 14-27:66 or Matthew 27: 11-54
Lots of hymns to choose from. Some are:
Tis 333: All glory, praise and honour
348: Ride on, ride on in majesty
724: Hosanna, hosanna
231: At the name of Jesus (picks up the words from one of the Bible readings set for today: Philippians 2: 5-11)
As we prepare to enter Holy Week, we may wish to reflect on:
640: Kneels at the feet of his friends, silently washes their feet
Prayers:
God of all faithfulness,
we come before you this Palm Sunday
to remember your way of love
in the midst of triumph
and in the midst of pain.
We recall the passion of your son Jesus Christ
and of how he was faithful to your way
even when it meant death on a cross.
Be with us as we read the story again
and help us to respond faithfully to its challenges.
Amen.
This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Oh Lord, our feet are like lead, we feel unable to dance at your entrance into Jerusalem. We feel weighed down at the beginnings of the most holy time in our Christian calendar, Holy Week.
We do not feel cheerful, joyous, due to the troubles in the world, troubles on our front door step.
Oh Lord, as we struggle to welcome you into Jerusalem, we ask that you ride into our hearts.
Help us tame our fear, our anxiety.
Help us to continue to love one another. This can be difficult to do, as we may look at others as harbourers of the virus.
Help us to remember that you are with us, we are not alone.
Amen
Sermon
Crowds
Welcoming parades- Moomba, Grand Final parades,
or disruptive crowds, protests. Last year, around this time, there were a number of large protests in the city-do you remember? I seemed to be in the city on several of those occasions, stuck in a tram, or having to negotiate a different route through the city, on foot. There were a number of union protests, climate change ones, and a large protest organised by vegans.
But not this year.
The city is, I understand, pretty empty. This year, there is an absence of crowds.
An absence of gatherings, of groups. Forbidden as well.
More like a Good Friday than a Palm Sunday mood.
If Palm Sunday was actually taking place THIS Sunday, the crowd would not have been able to gather to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, due to the covid-19 virus. What would they have done?
What will we do?
How will we welcome Jesus?
Let’s get back to the Gospel:
What sort of parade was it on Palm Sunday? Did the crowds inconvenience anyone? Stop market traffic?
On Palm Sunday, we are reminded that the Jesus whom adoring crowds welcomed into Jerusalem, is the Jesus whom the crowds turned against before the end of the week.
Palm Sunday quickly merges into the Sunday of the Passion.
-violence, bloodshed, and terror lurk behind the words of the story of Jesus’ last week.
During this Holy Week- we see a terrifying picture of our true selves and what God intends to do with us
(repeat)
Today’s lectionary reading has two choices: Palm Sunday, about the parade into Jerusalem, or the other readings, for Passion Sunday, which is the account of the betrayal, arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus-about the longest text of the church year-it contains the Last Supper, continues with Jesus’ prediction of his death and his disciple’s betrayal of him, and closes with his burial. It is a story of betrayal, injustice, cruelty and death.
It is a reminder that we continue to betray Jesus with our sin, our violence, our unfaithfulness.
This sermon will attempt to merge Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday, as we ready ourselves for Holy Week.
Two different moods-joyful, and sombre.
And yet-is this so?
Palm Sunday: on this day, crowds welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem by waving palm branches and shouting as he rode into town on a donkey.
-the waving of palm branches is usually interpreted as a biblical sign of welcome, hospitality.
But reports from an anthropologist note that, in some cultures, people wave branches to ward off approaching evil or terror.
The branches are like an extension of their arms, protecting themselves.
WHAT IF those waving palm branches were not simply an outburst of hospitality- but an unconscious attempt to ward off Jesus- to protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem from this strange intruder?
If that is so-then maybe we should wave palm branches every time we open the Bible!
Terror is no stranger to the Bible.
The Bible can be a terrifying book.
Not every time we hear the word, but as we near Good Friday-it is hard to escape the approaching terror.
An innocent man is about to be murdered.
Think about shocking parts of the Bible, shocking Bible stories.
One of the most disturbing for me, is the story of Abraham preparing to kill his son Isaac.
And now, in the New Testament, God is preparing another son, for a cross.
Let’s go back to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday- as a parable for how it often feels to follow God.
We may have faith that things will ultimately turn out according to God’s will BUT we know that God’s will may be radically different from our own.
-we may FEAR as we make our way through life.
One preacher wrote about the Texts of Terror-some biblical passages which are quite horrifying.
-the killing of the first born of the Egyptians in Exodus 11:5
-the ordering of Saul to slaughter all the Amalekites.
And in the New Testament- Jesus’ command to sell everything we have and follow him (Mk 10: 21)
-the refusal to open the door to the foolish bridesmaids in Matt 25: 12
-and the innocent Jesus being led to Calvary.
So, as we head towards Jerusalem, this Palm Sunday, we encounter, or perhaps fear, meeting a God whose mind we CANNOT read, whose decisions we CANNOT predict.
We protect ourselves. In the story of Abraham and Isaac, we quickly find the part about the ram being provided in the thicket, which saved Isaac,
-or we move from the horror of Good Friday, jumping ahead to Easter Sunday.
Why these terrible texts? Do they remind us of our helplessness, our frailty?
-how out of control we are?
YET there is some CONSOLATION knowing that these texts, these kinds of stories, are in the Bible.
*- a religion is no good if it will only speak on bright, sunny days- but can’t help us when we are going through our own darkness, our nightmares, our pits of despair.
(repeat)
A faith that is relevant only for the good times-is little faith.
Fairy tales help young children see their worst fears acted out, gives them an opportunity to name their unnamed terrors. This is helpful and redemptive.
Think back to your own childhood- I found it very hard to read the Grimm’s fairy tales- but every now and again I had to- overwhelmed by their brutality (eg Hansel and Gretel)-and then the much craved relief at the end of the tale.
(of course, these were originally told and written up for adults-their association with children came much later).
The terror that lurks behind the story of Palm Sunday we recognise.
-we recognise our faces in the faces of the crowd, those whom at first adoringly welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, but, by the end of the week, turn against him in a frenzy of bloodshed and violence.
We know the way in which we recognize our saviours, falling down before them in gratitude when we believe that they will give us everything our hearts desire- turning against them in anger when they do not deliver what we expect.
And somehow it is redemptive to see that depicted in the Bible-present in the Bible even as it is in life.
If the Bible was only concerned about the lilies of the valley and the birds of the field-it would not be our book.
But the Bible is our book.
-it is about us- the people we are rather than the people we wish we were.
And because the Bible is about us it is often a terrifying book.
More than just describing our terror, the Bible depicts a God who embraces our misbegotten cruelty.
God did not have Jesus stand over Jerusalem wringing his hands at the sight of mixed human motives- our evil, our sin.
God beckoned Jesus into Jerusalem, through Jerusalem, all the way to Calvary.
God does not simply name and judge our terrors; God is present in them, working out our redemption in ways we cannot see.
We know that healing hurts.
The events of Holy Week pose this question:
Are we prepared to follow God through all the events of our lives, or just the events that meet with our approval?
(repeat)
God does not set out to improve us but to radically save us.
The gospel itself may be a terrifying story for those of us who wish to avoid suffering and death.
Death lurks in the shadows throughout every event of this week, this Holy Week.
Jesus does not begrudging give his life to the forces of evil.
He offers it willingly.
He goes into the darkness alone- in quiet confidence that he will not be alone forever.
Palm Sunday.
Leading in to a tragic story of betrayal, violence and death.
From the sunshine of a parade-to the storm clouds of death.
Some of the members of the crowd who shouted “Hosanna” when he rode into Jerusalem, in a few days’ time will yell “Crucify him!”
Are they our voices?
Where are we in the crowd?
It is interesting to note, that in Luke’s account, ‘crowd’ is not mentioned, instead it reads:
‘As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully…’
‘…multitude of the disciples…’
Let’s be part of that category, shall we? We are included in this group of disciples.
The good news is that Jesus did not step aside from the encroaching terror.
-he did not escape into the divine world, sealed off from human pain.
He came among us.
-he came among us, willingly.
He passed through the waving palm branches (branches waved either to welcome him or to ward him off)
and marched with us up to death.
He embraced the terror, the pain of human existence and said,
“Brothers and Sisters, I love you.”
He is with us now, today, comforting us in our unsettling times, standing beside us, whispering peace into our troubled, fearful hearts: “I love you, I am with you always. I will never abandon you.”
Amen
(5.4.20. Leighmoor UC)
