Palm Sunday: a sermon

Sermon by Andrew Krahn on Mark 11:1-11, Mark 14:17-42, & Mark 14:43-50.

I remember really struggling with Palm Sunday as a kid. To start off with, the context of everything going on in the story is completely lost on a kid in the 90s — I don’t think anything has changed in that regard. All of the actions, all of the details, they need to be explained. Why does Jesus need a colt that has never been ridden? And why is it okay for him to send a couple of disciples to just take it? It’s not his. And why are people spreading their cloaks on the road? Those cloaks are going to get very dirty and their moms and dads are going to be angry. Spreading out leafy branches seems fine. I guess. [shrug]

What I remember is that it was explained that all of these things were signs that Jesus was the King; that the crowds of people knew that Jesus was the King. And everybody was very excited, because Israel hadn’t had a King in a very long time. Well except for the Herods. [shrug]

But that all brought me to my biggest question. How did the crowd turn from Palm Sunday to Good Friday so quickly? From “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” to “Crucify him!” in a matter of days? Didn’t they know him? Didn’t they hear him preach and teach? Didn’t they eat his bread and fish? Didn’t they see him heal? Forgive? Weren’t they there when he said to “Let the little children come” to him? That was my favourite part! And it had only just happened in the last chapter in the Markan account.

My Sunday School teachers would get us to act out the story of Palm Sunday. And we were supposed to muster up all our enthusiasm and celebrate that Jesus is King. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to identify with the people who turned on Jesus. Who betrayed him.

But I got older. Grew up, I suppose. I’ve come to know, if not really understand, that large groups of people can turn from peaceful gatherings to violent mobs quite quickly given the right — or I suppose wrong — set of stimuli. I learned that Jesus threatened the control of some powerful people which can be a dangerous thing to do. And that Jesus’ brand of Kingship didn’t line up very well with the people shouting Hosanna. They were looking for a King to save them from the Romans and Jesus wanted to save them from something else altogether.

So I’m older now, but I’m still confused. Only now I’m a little more inclined to feel for the crowds than I am for Jesus. The crowds are being quite clear of what they are looking and hoping for. Hosanna! They shout. “Save now!” it means. “Save now!” But they seem to also be using it as a word of praise. “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” only really makes sense as a declaration of praise. And they continue, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” It couldn’t be more clear what they want. They want an end to their current plight as subjects of Rome. They want liberation from Roman oppression and freedom to follow their own laws, traditions, and ways of life. They want the return of the glory of the Davidic kingdom when Israel was united and flourishing under God’s blessing. David was a warrior king. “Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands.” That’s the song they sang about him. God didn’t let David build the temple because David had shed so much blood. And now the people are shouting, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” They want a warrior king. They want a King who will set things to rights. And to be honest, I’m kind of with them.

Roman rule was cruel and unjust, exacting swift and bloody vengeance on any who sought to challenge it. How many were killed in the name of Caesar? How many were enslaved as the spoils of war? People and land alike were ravaged and forced into subjugation to satisfy the ego of a ruler who thought he was a god.

So why shouldn’t the crowd be asking hopefully, that they might be saved now? That the systems and structures of power that created so much suffering be levelled? How long must they wait?

How long must we wait? The systems and structures of power of today are still agents of horrific injustice. I, myself, am the product of imperial colonialism, of a history of ravaging people and land to satisfy the greed and ego of already wealthy and powerful empires. And I’m the benefactor of an outrageously oppressive patriarchy that stretches back more or less unbroken to the time of Jesus. Why couldn’t he overthrow it all? Why couldn’t Jesus dismantle it brick by brick?

I tend to read gospel stories like this one with the other gospel accounts ringing in my ears. Matthew and John particularly both play up this scene a good deal more than Mark does. In those accounts, the crowds are more jubilant and their attention is more clearly focused on Jesus. But the story we read in the gospel of Mark sounds a bit of a duller note.

Morna D. Hooker observes, “In Mark’s account, Jesus enters the city of David as king, heralded as ‘Son of David’ by a blind beggar on the road, and welcomed by the plaudits of other pilgrims who, whether they are his own disciples or simply members of the crowd, do not grasp the full significance of their own greeting, any more than Peter, at Caesarea Philippi (following the healing of another blind man), grasped the significance of his acclamation of Jesus as the Christ.” In Mark’s account, it is not clear that the crowds shouts of Hosanna! Are in response to Jesus’ presence or rather just incidental to it. One could read the story with the sense that the readers are meant to know that Jesus is the King that the crowds are celebrating, but that the crowds themselves are unaware of his presence.

However it’s read it all builds leads to an utterly anticlimactic ending. Jesus enters the temple, has a bit of a look around and then leaves. He doesn’t start flipping tables or make any impassioned speeches. In Mark those are saved for another day. For a triumphal entry the whole affair comes off a little less than inspiring.

So I’ll confess to being let down by Jesus. It’s not hard to read the story and see an underwhelming leader whose biggest accomplishments of the day were to commandeer another person’s colt, enjoy a parade and have a bit of a look around. And if that’s what Jesus has to offer, I can see the temptation to listen to a stronger voice. One that promises some real action, or at least hope for a bit of change. There is real and profound evil in the world and if Jesus won’t take it head on, maybe I should look for someone who will.

I toyed with the idea of leaving the sermon here. Perhaps drawing a line between ourselves and the disciples who all scattered, abandoning Jesus, utterly disappointed, dismayed and disillusioned at the outcome. Lost to the night. But it won’t do.

Our second reading for today, though perhaps not less confusing, shows us what sort of king Jesus really is. We come to Mark’s account of the last supper and the drama of the garden and encounter Jesus fully aware of the trial ahead of him. He breaks bread with his friends, knowing full well they will betray and abandon him. Traitors all, He gifts them with his flesh and blood, his very life. And he walks into the night ahead of him alone.

Jesus may very well not be the King we want. He may not save us in the way we want to be saved or even from what we want salvation from. And there’s no denying that from the day of our birth we are walking unwaveringly toward the night of our death. But we won’t walk it alone. We serve a King who, rather than eliminate pain and injustice, suffers it alongside us. Through every darkness and horror and sorrow, Christ never abandons, deserts, or betrays.

At evening prayer on weekdays for the last couple of weeks Gilbert and Adeline have been leading us in a classic hymn that suits very well as a closing:

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide

The darkness deepens Lord, with me abide

When other helpers fail and comforts flee

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me

Christ walks alongside us into the night. And he walks ahead of us into the dawn.

Amen.