Erl Purnell Sermon

cPalm Sunday ~ April 1, 2007 ~ A sermon preached by The Rev’d Erl G. Purnell at Old St. Andrew’s Church, Bloomfield, CT

Luke 19.29-40 … Isaiah 45.21-25; Psalm 22.1-11; Philippians 2.5-11; Luke 22.39-23.56

Each year I encourage you to participate in the Holy Week services offered here at Old St. Andrew’s in the evenings and on Good Friday afternoon. My reason is because many people who have done so in the past say that they understand and appreciate Easter in new and powerful ways after living through the week in prayer and worship. Easter becomes more personal and visceral. I hope you’ll consider experiencing Holy Week 2007 here with us.

By way of getting your attention about the drama of Holy Week, this morning I want to paint a dramatic picture of Palm Sunday. It may surprise you. A careful study of Palm Sunday events in the context of the up-coming Passover feast in Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago provides the initial provocation that lead to Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution. What we now call Palm Sunday set the stage for the inevitable.

You know the story, the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. You heard it again this morning, just before you received palms to symbolically lay down in the path of Jesus who’s sitting on the rump of a donkey and riding into Jerusalem.

Jesus and his entourage arrive at a spot somewhere near Bethphage and Bethany, two small villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Now, when we snap an overhead picture of Jesus and his disciples, it’s not just thirteen men in a little band standing on the side of the road. Jesus always had crowds of disciples with him, both men and women followers. Were there twenty or thirty? Fifty-seven? Who knows? Well, it doesn’t matter specifically. What is important is that a whole bunch of people were with Jesus when he sent two ahead to find the colt.

A while later, the two return. Can you imagine the little critter they brought back? Big ears, fly-flicking tail, dusty coat of brown fur over boney withers. Certainly not a noble beast. The colt of a donkey. Not just a donkey, but “a colt that has never been ridden,” Luke tells us. The crowd of disciples mills around. Jesus mounts the colt. The parade begins.

Now the best guess is that it’s mid- to late-afternoon. The day began, perhaps you’ll remember, with Jesus passing through Jericho and heading up to Jerusalem. It’s quite a hike. Everybody’s got to be tired by this time of the day. But, Jesus insists on entering the City … and curiously, entering atop a donkey.

Surely, folks from Bethany and Bethphage had heard about Jesus and they, too, came out to see him and what was happening, maybe a few at first and then more and more. There’s Jesus surrounded by his friends and on-lookers and soon joined by a throng of people. The hoops and hollers could probably be heard up ahead and so, of course, even more people came out to see what was going on … who was coming. People started throwing their cloaks on the road along with palm fronds, all in homage to Jesus, just like they would if the King of Israel himself had been entering Jerusalem on a magnificent white horse with a noble army behind him.

It’s impossible to say who might have shouted first, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” but soon, Luke reports, the whole multitude was saying it. In Mark’s Gospel, the shouts include Hosanna! and Hosanna in the highest heaven! Whenever I see this scene in my mind’s eye, I can’t help but think of the rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar! “Ho sanna, hey sanna, sanna, sanna, ho sanna, hey sanna, ho sanna. Hey JC, JC, won’t you smile at me, sanna, ho sanna, hey Superstar…”

How big did the crowd get to be? Hard to say. What do you think? A few hundred? A thousand? Remember, this was the beginning of the pilgrimage season and faithful Jews from all around Judea and Galilee were coming to worship in the Temple. Suffice it to say, the Jesus-parade was a huge hit and lots and lots of people accompanied Jesus along the path down from the Mount of Olives and up to the Temple.

Luke tells us that some Pharisees in the crowd want Jesus to quiet down his followers. For good reason. The singing and shouting must have been near riotous, something sure to attract the attention of the Romans. Not a good idea! Jesus response? “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” Jesus continues into the City.

Mark and Luke differ in what happens next. Mark says Jesus entered the Temple but then returned to Bethany. Luke insists that that was when Jesus caused such a ruckus in the Temple, driving out the money changers and people who were selling things and quoting Isaiah 56.7 at the top of his lungs, “‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.” Mark’s gospel describes Jesus’ rampage as happening on Monday, the next day. Be that as it may, Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his wreaking havoc in the Temple clearly announce that an obscure Jewish peasant from Nazareth has come to town for the Passover riding on a donkey.

In our time—these many years later and after centuries of church teaching—hardly a soul stops to wonder what else might have been going on that day in Jerusalem. Our perspective is so myopic that we hardly ever think of the vendors whose pigeons flew the coop or money changers whose coins were lost or stolen. We focus only on Jesus, the colt, the crowd, along with cloaks and palm fronds in his path and the growing anger of the Pharisees, chief priests, and the scribes. But there was more going on in Jerusalem that day … much more.

Did I mention that Jesus came from the east, from Jericho? Well, at about the same time and on the same day, it is not hard to realize that another entourage was also entering Jerusalem. From the west, in anticipation of the high holy days of the Jewish people, the Roman Governor, blood red cloak nobly falling from his broad armored shoulders, also entered the City, he atop a mighty war horse and with scores of troops following him. His standard, bearing the letters SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus or Senate and People of Rome), raised at his side for all to see … and respect. Any of the locals in the road would have immediately stepped aside and cowered in fear.

Pontius Pilate, the steel hardened, iron fisted representative of Roman authority and power, would make his presence known in Jerusalem just in case there was any trouble. (He lived, of course, in the far more civilized and cooler sea-side resort of Caesarea.) Anyway, Pilate would reinforce the garrison at this time of year because experience told him that thousands and thousands of pilgrims flock into Jerusalem and the surrounding areas for Passover. No sense in taking any chances. Pilate did not like the Jews, did not like crowds, and especially did not like crowds of Jews. He did not want a riot or worse some sort of zealot insurrection. He remembered that Passover celebrates Moses’ earlier liberation of the Jewish people from the oppression of Pharaoh. This Roman Governor wanted no repeats of past history. Pilate’s strategy was simple, tried and true: show massive force and hard-line control.

So, are you beginning to appreciate the unfolding drama, the blatant contrast. From the east comes a Jewish peasant riding on a donkey’s colt and being hailed as king with crowds and crowds of excited and friendly onlookers accompanying him. His is an anti-imperialist parade! From the west comes Pilate, the Governor, riding in crisp military formation and representing Caesar (the king of the Roman Empire and so also Palestine!). These two processions reflect the conflict about to be played out. Just who is king? Whose kingdom is this? Is the true king a king of war or peace? The tension between Jesus’ kingdom of God program clashes directly with Rome’s imperial control and authority; moreover, theologically the Gospels’ Jesus directly challenges Caesar’s own claim to divinity.

And so, Holy Week begins … again. Where in the crowd are you?

Amen.

References from The Last Week, Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan. Harper SF, 2006.