Palm Parade

A Sermon Inspired by Matthew 21:1-11

"Palm Sunday" by Evans Yegon

On a spring day in the year 30 AD, two parades made their way into Jerusalem. You and I—we are most familiar with one Palm Sunday parade, the one with Jesus, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey with Hosanna singing and palm branch waving. We hear the story every year as we begin the most holy week of the Christian calendar, the final stretch of Lent, the end of our journey with Jesus to the cross. But, in their book entitled The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach about Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem, biblical scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan propose that Jesus’ palm parade wasn’t the only show in town that day.[1]

On the other side of town, Pontius Pilate entered the holy city of Jerusalem from the west, riding on a warhorse. Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, was in town because it was the beginning of the Jewish festival of Passover. Passover is for our Jewish siblings one of the most holy weeks of the year as they remember God’s deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. As the people of Jesus’ day gathered to celebrate this religious holiday of liberation in Jerusalem, insurrection would have been in the air. They knew what it was like to live under Pharaoh…his name was Caesar now. They knew what it was like to fear Egyptian slave drivers…they walked in fear of Roman soldiers who could legally steal the coat off their backs or force them to carry armor for a mile. They knew what it was like to live in a place where they had no power…they may have been in the Promised Land and not Egypt, but Rome was in control. 

And, just in case they forgot it, just in case the rituals of Passover with its rich symbolism made them dream of a modern-day Moses who would overthrow the emperor, just in case…Pontius Pilate had a Passover parade, complete with the gaudy glory of imperial power – mighty horses, shiny chariots, gleaming armor, and a full display of the man power of the Roman army in tow to remind the Jewish people as they entered Jerusalem on their Passover Pilgrimage…you are not in control here! Rome is.

There is a whole lot of stuff in my world right now that I do not feel like I’m in control of. While I can wash my hands and limit my contact with others, I do not feel like I can control whether I or the people I love will get sick with coronavirus. While I can work as hard as I can from home and be creative to show that the job can still get done, even if it’s in a different way, I cannot control if other workplaces adapt to help people keep their jobs. While I can only buy the groceries I need and give away any extra to those who I find out are in need, I do not feel like I can control if there are people who go hungry because they don’t know where to turn for help. While I can pray for a miracle and stay positive, I cannot control when this will end, when we will be able to gather again for worship, and what kind of spiritual and financial shape our church will be in after all of this.

But as I begin to worry about all the things I cannot control, I remember that there were two parades in Jerusalem that day so long ago. From the east, came another procession, more humble in nature than the parade of Pontius Pilate. No warhorses and weaponry followed by military troops marching in battle armor. Just Jesus, Zechariah’s prophesied king of peace, wearing an ordinary robe, with humble transportation – a borrowed donkey – surrounded not by warriors but by peasants shouting, “Hosanna! Save us!”

That is my prayer today. Hosanna, King Jesus! That is the cry of my heart – Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna literally means “Save us!” or “Rescue us!” And so I pray…King Jesus, save us from these days of discord, distance, death, and disease. 

King Jesus, save us from the fear in our hearts. 

King Jesus, save us from ignoring the facts offered to us by medical experts. 
King Jesus, save us from the crashing stock market that threatens the financial future of many. 

King Jesus, save us from the slow down of the economy causing people to lose their jobs now and worry about how to make it through today, much less tomorrow. 

King Jesus, save us from our boredom at being cooped up in our houses. 
King Jesus, save us from the stress of trying to be perfect as we help our children learn from home. 

King Jesus, save us from the pressure of being productive out of a desire to prove our worth to others. 
King Jesus, save us from coronavirus. 

King Jesus, save us from trying to control the things that are out of our control.

Because, as I put myself in the story of Scripture, and I walk from the west side of Jerusalem to the east, as I join the palm parade welcoming the Messiah King into the holy city, I find that the difference in Jesus’ parade and Pilate’s parade is NOT that Jesus tells me I am now in control. No, both of these parades make clear that I am not the master of my own destiny. Jesus’ parade gives me no special power. Instead, I am reminded the triumph of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is that GOD IS IN CONTROL!

And, as it so often is, the reminder that God is in control is a reminder that I am not. And, even when it doesn’t feel like it, that is good news! Because God’s ways are greater than my ways. What God can do is greater than what I can imagine. Where I would settle for a king who promises temporary safety and who rules with power and might, God sends a servant king to establish everlasting peace and to rule with justice, mercy, and love.

When it feels like the earth is shaking and the ground beneath my feet falls away, the solid ground on which I can stand is not the kind of king I would settle for. Our leaders, as wonderful or as worrisome as they might be, they are only human. They amount to sinking sand. Only Jesus Christ is rock solid. Jesus – the king NOT of the mighty but the king of fisherman and tax collectors. Jesus – the king NOT of the powerful but the king of Samaritans and prostitutes. Jesus – the king NOT of the wealthy and the well-connected but the king of people who were separated from their community, by blindness, by paralysis, by disease.

And because Jesus is that kind of king, his parade keeps on going even after the coats of onlookers are picked back up, the palm branches dry out, and the songs of hosanna fade away. Jesus chooses to enter a deadly situation without force or protection, a reminder that God put on skin and became vulnerable to show us the depths of his love. Because of love for you and me, God risked it all…just to get closer to us! Because of love, Jesus will keep walking his parade path all the way to the Golgotha, all the way to the cross, all the way to death. And when he dies on a Roman cross, a symbol of the empire’s power over human life, the earth will shake and the rocks will split open. It will look like death has won. But that’s not the end of the story.

And we can trust, that the shaky ground we find ourselves on now, as we celebrate Holy Week separated from one another, will not be the end of the story either.

So, today…will you join in Jesus’ palm parade? 

Will you follow the King who comes in the name of the Lord? 

Will you give up trying to control the future and trust in the One who is in control? 

Will you cast down your cloaks in worship before the Messiah? 

Will you wave palm branches high and sing “Hosanna! Save me, Jesus! Save me, even from myself.”? 

Will you walk with Jesus down the long road that leads to the cross? 

Will you be faithful and remain with him, even as he takes his last breath, and trust that death will not be the end of his story? 

It won’t be the end of our story either, friends. But, for now, we wait, we watch, and we stay close to Jesus, even in the face of suffering, of pain, of death.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[1] “The Roman procession is Borg’s and Crossan’s imaginary historical reconstruction based on non-biblical sources. However, it serves well, as they intended, the purpose of accentuating the political dimensions of…the ‘pre-arranged counter procession’ of Jesus and his followers.” From John Rollefson’s “Homiletical Perspective” article on Matthew 21:1-11” in Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).