A sermon I wrote in 2003 ... still appropriate.
What can be said about Palm Sunday? It is the Sunday immediately before Easter. It is a day when we gather as we always do; only this time we bring these silly palm branches with us. We do this as a way of re-creating in our worship space what happened with Jesus on that day that he entered Jerusalem.
It is right for us to gather up palm branches and to wave them, but as we do, we are in danger of forgetting what happens between today and Easter; we are in danger of completely missing Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We are in danger of falling into the same trap that the disciples did on the first Palm Sunday.
They celebrated a king they thought they knew. They celebrated a king that within a week would die brutally and in humiliation. Now the question for us is, “Can we celebrate this kind of king ourselves?” Or do we wave our palm branches and sing our songs of victory only for the kind of king that we want instead of the kind of king that Jesus actually is?
So here is Palm Sunday and here we sit in our worship space and we wave our palm branches and we sing our songs of victory and we throw around words like “triumphal” and I wonder to myself if we really do know anything about this day at all. I don’t think that we do. The Bible tells us that only after this moment; long after this moment had passed, in fact, did the disciples understand it at all. We definitely have the same problem.
The tradition of this day is to wave palm branches and to shout Hosanna! But I think the tradition should be changed. As we wave our palm branches, we should be required to also read once again the stories of Jesus’ betrayal and death. Only after we do this will we truly understand this day! Only after we see this day through the lens of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday will we truly know our king!
In my mind’s eye, I can see Jesus riding into Jerusalem on that donkey, but I like to focus my attention on the disciples that day. There they are; walking through the streets with Jesus—heads held high, proudly drinking in the noise and the acclaim. They are hearing the people shout “Hosanna in the Highest!” and they are thinking, “Yeah...I’m with him!”
But again, John, the author of our passage this morning and one of those disciples of which I speak, makes it clear that as they walk along with Jesus in this make-shift parade and as they drink it all in, the reality is that they have no understanding of what is happening. Only after...only after the parade is done; only after the acclaim has passed; only after their hero has died in humiliation; only after he rises from the dead and especially only after the Holy Spirit comes, will they see. Only after this day will it begin to make sense. Only after will they see and understand.
Palm Sunday is about the Lord of the Universe riding into town on the back of a donkey. It’s also about a bunch of people called disciples who think that they’ve got that sight all figured out when really, they don’t at all. It’s about the disciples and you and me thirsting for a king on our terms and then getting a king on God’s terms. We gather today and we celebrate the triumphal king of God coming into our lives, but will we still be celebrating and standing up on Maundy Thursday? Will we still be saying, “Yeah...I’m with him!” on Good Friday when Jesus hangs on that Cross in our place?
The disciples fully participate with Jesus but are clueless as to the big picture. They are active in their support, but they don’t know what it is they are standing for and they are at a loss as to what is going to happen next. Jesus’ betrayal and death are inconceivable to them. They are participating in Palm Sunday; they’re doing it right, just like we do every year, but because they can’t see what’s coming next, they don’t have a clue as to what kind of king this is that they are celebrating and claiming as their own.
Last Wednesday, I was in a little parade of my own. It was the parade that is known as one man’s attempt to cross a bridge into the land that we call Iowa, and it has become a very difficult journey of late. I was in a severe traffic jam on the Centennial Bridge and I was one with the people. I was angry and impatient and frustrated and I could have easily and quickly found a hundred others right there with me who were feeling and expressing with their horns and voices the exact same thing.
Just like the disciples on that first Palm Sunday I was in a slow moving parade; just like the disciples on that first Palm Sunday, I thought I knew what I was supposed to feel; just like the disciples on that first Palm Sunday, I figured I knew what that traffic jam was all about, but in reality, just like the disciples, I didn’t know anything at all.
I didn’t know anything about where I was until after something happened. It was only after something happened that I began to understand. It was only after something happened that I began to find peace and perspective. It was only after something profound happened, that I was able to hold that traffic jam in its proper light.
The traffic jam that was the first Palm Sunday only made sense to the disciples after the crucifixion and the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit and that traffic jam on that bridge on Wednesday only felt right to me after I turned on the radio. The disciples needed so much more to happen before they could understand the Triumphal Entry and before I could be right with that traffic jam, I was going to need to turn on the radio.
When I did, I was greeted by the sweet and classic soul sound of Earth Wind and Fire singing “Dancin’ in September”. On and on…dancing in September, never was cloudy day! I’m stuck on that bridge and I’m singing at the top of my lungs and I’m dancing in the best way that you can while sitting inside of an 88 Buick. I sat there for a moment, still singing, now living life in a complete state of joy in the midst of a terrible traffic jam and I’m thinking, there has just got to be a sermon illustration in here somewhere!
That song literally took me out of the traffic jam. I was stuck in traffic in the physical sense, but in the sense of the spirit, where perspective runs as pure as you can find it, I was free. That simple and wonderful song took me out of my confusion and anger and got me back in touch with the big picture.
Surely you see what I am getting at by now. Palm Sunday can be nothing more than a traffic jam to us. Palm Sunday can be a parade in which we celebrate victory as we define it. In fact, without the perspective of the whole story of Jesus; without the crucifixion and resurrection and the Holy Spirit; without the song that the whole story of Holy Week sings, this day is impossible for us to handle and impossible for us to understand.
Palm Sunday has a joyous feel to it. We like to come to church and feel good when we do. We like to sing songs with a joyful and triumphal sound to them and we like to leap from the triumphal sound of Palm Sunday all the way over to the joyous feel of Easter Sunday, but that is an enormous leap!
When we do, we are jumping over Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. When we do, we are skipping over everything that happens there and everything that those moments hold and we are celebrating the wrong kind of power, the wrong kind of victory, and the wrong kind of king. Palm Sunday can only be properly understood and worshipped only after we experience and understand everything else that Jesus is first.
It’s a wonderful thing to come to church. It is a wonderful choice to make. Yet without the perspective of the crucifixion; without the perspective of the resurrection; and especially without the perspective of the Holy Spirit, we are just a group of religious folks participating in the strange ritual of waving leaves in the air.
This passage from John is about Palm Sunday; it is about the Triumphal Entry, but more than anything else, it is about perspective and our propensity to miss what God is doing because of what we lack in that regard. And what we lack on this day, as much as anything, is exactly what the disciples lacked on that first Palm Sunday—the perspective that only the big picture can bring; the perspective that only the whole Jesus story can bring; the perspective that comes only after you accept not only what this Palm Sunday is about, but also ultimately to what it leads to in the end.
Yes! This is Palm Sunday, but it is also just a beginning. It is a beginning that we can’t understand without the Cross and the empty tomb, but it is also a beginning that leads the true followers of Jesus ultimately to the place of fulfillment, purpose and truth. But it all happens only after we shout “Hosanna!” with the true perspective of the entire Jesus story firm within our minds and our hearts.
In September 1985, a celebration at a New Orleans municipal pool was held. The party around the pool was held to celebrate a summer without a drowning at any New Orleans city pool. In honor of the occasion, two hundred people gathered, including one hundred certified lifeguards. As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried and tried to revive Jerome Moody, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards who were celebrating their successful season.
What an awful legacy! What an awful final chapter to have—drowning in a swimming pool surrounded by lifeguards! This isn’t a fable; it really happened! It really happened in New Orleans and it really happens in churches on Palm Sunday every year.
We are celebrating, but do we have our eyes open? We are celebrating, but do we have perspective? We are celebrating; we are shouting, “Hosanna!” but do we know what it is all about? That man died in that swimming pool that day not because the people didn’t know what to do, but because they weren’t paying attention at all. It is tragic because it happened, but it is even more tragic because of why it happened.
Up until this point in the service, we have sung the right songs. We have sung “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” We have sung “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna.” Our hymnals tell us that these are the songs that we are supposed to sing on this day. The songs and their familiar melodies tell us how we are supposed to feel. Now we are going to sing a song that we aren’t supposed to sing on this day.
It is an African Spiritual, which means that black slaves composed the words to this song even though they didn’t know how to read or write. It is a song that was sung by slaves in the midst of great sorrow. It is a song that is written in honor of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. It is a song of responsibility and one that calls each of us to take ownership of the true meaning of Easter and the true nature of the Kingdom of God.
This song is called “Were You There?” Were you there when they crucified the Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they pierced him in the side? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb? If you weren’t, and if you are not willing to go there today, it will be impossible for you to celebrate Jesus as you should. It will be impossible for you to know what kind of king Jesus really is. Only after we let Jesus wash our feet; only after we go to the Cross with Jesus; only after we see that empty tomb for ourselves, can we wave these old palm branches in the proper spirit and celebrate the coming of the King of Kings. Amen.
