Palm Passion Sunday
March 24, 2013
Luke 19:28-40; Psalm 31:9-16
“Highway to the Danger Zone”
After I preached last month, my
husband asked me what ‘80s movie I would use for a sermon illustration next
time and suggested ‘Top Gun.’ I told
him, “Are you crazy? I’m preaching Palm
Sunday! What does ‘Top Gun’ have to do
with Palm Sunday?!” He thought for a
moment and then said, “Highway to the Danger Zone!” Well… he’s right. Palm Sunday, Jesus’ triumphal entry into
Jerusalem is a highway into the danger zone, and Jesus is well aware of
it. He knows he’s going into dangerous
territory. He knows the Passion is
coming. He does this joyful procession
with palms and hosanna’s and everything, knowing that Good Friday is
coming. Now, his disciples don’t know. They’re excited, caught up in the moment,
thinking it’s about time that the Messiah has come to Jerusalem! Now
Jesus is going to inaugurate his kingdom!
Now, finally! They never did
understand when Jesus tried to tell them otherwise. Jesus tried to tell them what was really
going to happen, but they never listened.
And so, in our Gospel story, they are praising God loudly and joyfully
and they upset the Pharisees because they quote from Psalm 118, “Blessed is the
one who comes in the name of the Lord!”, and in doing so they’re being blasphemous
and treasonous. But they’re so excited! And Jesus lets them be excited. He knows this is a momentous thing for him to
enter Jerusalem.
Jesus knows that you gotta celebrate when it’s time to celebrate. Many of you know that before seminary I
served in Nicaragua for about a year. My
first trip home during that year was after I’d been gone for nine months and it
was for my sister’s wedding. I remember
talking with my sister about her wedding plans and she commented that I
probably thought it was wasteful that they were spending all this money on the
wedding when there’s so much poverty and hunger in the world. And it’s true; Nicaragua is the second
poorest country in this hemisphere. I
had trouble with culture shock when I went to a workshop in Costa Rica after
about six months of living in Nicaragua because of the relative wealth in
comparison and not just paved roads, but roads with painted lines on
them! My sister’s wedding was at the
Chapel of the Cross here in town and the reception was at the Carolina Inn, so
it was a fancy affair. However, what I
told her was that the money was being spent on celebrating and that this was a
time to celebrate. She wasn’t going
overboard with it, but trying to create a nice, classy event and atmosphere,
which she succeeded in doing. You gotta
celebrate when it’s time to celebrate.
Speaking of weddings, Jesus himself uses
a wedding analogy when explaining to John the Baptist’s disciples why his disciples don’t fast. He says, “Wedding guests cannot mourn as long
as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the
bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”[1] When the bridegroom is around, that’s Jesus, you
celebrate, but you will not always have the bridegroom with you. This is just one of many times Jesus tells
his disciples and others that he won’t always be around. Jesus entered Jerusalem amidst great
celebration, knowing that his passion was coming.
In fact, one of the many ways Jesus
is described throughout the Gospels is as “setting his face to go to Jerusalem.”[3] Think about that image. “Setting your face like flint.”[4] It calls to mind words like determination and
focus and even stubbornness. But just
because Jesus knows what is coming and is unwavering in his commitment to go
through with it… doesn’t mean that he likes it.
It doesn’t even mean that he wants
to do it! Instead, he’s steeling his
will, setting his face like flint, getting up his guts ready to do it. Remember that prayer from the garden of
Gethsemane? “Father, if you are willing,
remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.”[5] Jesus knows it’s coming, he knows it’s what
he’s gotta do. He knows that you gotta face what you gotta face.
In June of 1939, at the urging of his friends, Dietrich Bonhoeffer found
himself back at Union Seminary in New York, where he had done post-doc work a
few years before. His doctorate in
theology was from Berlin University in his native Germany. By 1939, Bonhoeffer was a leader of the
Confessing Church of Germany, a branch of Protestantism that had sprung up in
Germany in opposition to the Nazi government’s attempt to influence the Church. However, no sooner had Bonhoeffer arrived in
the U.S. than he wrote, “I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in
coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national
history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the
reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the
trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face
the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order
that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation
and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must
choose but I cannot make that choice from
security.”[6] Bonhoeffer
returned to Germany on the last scheduled steamer to cross the Atlantic in July
1939. In April 1943, he was arrested by
the Gestapo and imprisoned at a Nazi concentration camp. He was executed in April 1945. Bonhoeffer could have avoided his death. He could have stayed in New York where he was
safe. But he knew he had to go back to
Germany. That ocean passage was a
highway to the danger zone. And you know
what? He never regretted that decision.[7] He faced what he had to face.
It’s interesting, because one of Bonhoeffer’s more well-known quotes,
from his book The Cost of Discipleship, is “When Christ calls a man, he
bids him come and die.”[8] In facing what you gotta face, you may, in a
sense, have to die. In obeying Christ
and becoming his disciple, you often have to let go of other things. You often have to do things you don’t want to
do. Whether it’s a friendship or a favorite
pastime or something else that is not life-giving, something that does not aid
you in your faith journey, you have to let that thing go to follow Christ. Or it may be something else that has to die,
whether a dream job or your ideal place to live. Following Christ means we don’t always get what we want.
Now, I’m not saying you pretend you’re not upset about it or that you
don’t grieve giving it up. It’s ok to weep when it’s time to weep. We know Jesus wept when he visited his
friend, Lazarus’, grave site. Shortest
sentence, in the Bible, right? “Jesus wept.”[9] And Jesus even weeps as he faces Good Friday. You know when he prays in that garden in
Gethsemane about the cup passing from him and yet not his will being done but
God’s, he instructs his disciples: “I am deeply grieved …even to death; remain here, and stay awake with
me.”[10]
Of course, they promptly fall asleep,
which is part of why Jesus gets so upset with them. This is a time to grieve and be upset… and
they can’t keep their eyes open! You may
or may not always want company in your grief, but eventually, you probably
will, because at some point you will want to share your story, you have to
share your story to heal, and when you do, you want whoever’s with you to listen!
I was telling my mom about my sermon
for today and she reminded me of when her mom, my Grandma, died. Grandpa didn’t have the memorial service
right away; he chose to wait about ten days.
However, that first weekend, Lee, my sister, and I went up, anyway. My mom was there and a couple of her
brothers. It didn’t matter that nothing
official was going on, there was no viewing, nothing at the church, no event at
the house, nothing, but we wanted to go up, anyway, to be with family, to
grieve with them. And then we went up
again the next weekend for the memorial service. So, please, grieve when it’s time to
grieve. And Good Friday that’s coming
up, the Passion story we will live through this week, is a time to grieve.
My husband and I have recently become Whovians. I haven’t quite come to terms with this
nickname yet, but we do love “Dr. Who.”
“Dr. Who” is a British science-fiction TV show, produced by the BBC,
about the time travels and adventures of a “time lord,” who is called simply,
The Doctor. It has been running on and
off for fifty years and we started watching on Netflix the most recent
incarnation of it, which began in 2005 and recently we watched the Christmas
special from 2011, entitled “The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe.” Crazy otherworldly shenanigans always seem to
be inflicted upon London at Christmastime.
In this particular case, Dr. Who travels to World War II London and
befriends a family whose dad is away fighting in the war. The mom has just received notice that he was
killed in the line of duty, but she does not want to tell her kids yet because
she doesn’t want them to associate this memory with Christmas. Dr. Who talks with her about her inner
turmoil as to whether or not to tell the kids yet. And he says, “…every time you see them happy,
you remember how sad they’re going to be, and it breaks your heart. Because what’s the point in them being happy
now if they’re going to be sad later? …The
answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.”
Now, Palm Sunday is a time to rejoice and celebrate. And next Sunday, Easter, will also be a time
to be happy as we celebrate Jesus' resurrection. However, in the meantime,
we have to travel through the Passion; we have to journey with Jesus to the
cross. We can be happy now and celebrate
now because we are going to be sad later.
The good news as Christians… is that Good Friday is not the end of the story. We know Easter's coming. We know our weeping will turn to
joy.[11] But you can't get to Easter without going through Good Friday. In the meantime, and where we live
most of our lives, is between Jesus’ death and resurrection. So don’t rush the grieving. Be sad when it’s time to be sad. And be happy when it’s time to be happy. Face whatever it is that you gotta face. Amen.
[1] Matthew 9:15, NRSV
[3] Luke 9:51, NRSV
[4] Isaiah 50:7, NRSV
[5] Luke 22:42, NRSV
[6] From the Memoir by
G. Leibholz in The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New
York: Touchstone, 1995), p. 17-18, emphasis mine
[7] Ibid.
[8] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The
Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1995), p. 89
[9] John 11:35, NIV, KJV (but not NRSV, interestingly
enough)
[10] Matthew 26:38, NRSV
[11] John 16:20, NRSV
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