Sermon - PALM SUNDAY - 20th March 2016

One of our Lay Readers, Simon Brindley, preaches today. The Gospel reading is from Luke 19: verses 28-40.

We know how Jesus arrived in Jerusalem – that is the main focus of our thoughts this morning – he arrived on a colt, probably a young donkey, with people throwing down their cloaks for him to cross and waving palm branches in the air (actually Luke does not record the palm branches but each of Matthew, Mark and John does, which is why we give out these palm crosses still today) - but where was he coming from that day? All journeys must begin somewhere.

This arrival was the end of a journey that probably took a day - or possibly two on foot - from the city of Jericho. Jesus had been there in the course of his teaching and healing ministry but now Passover was coming and he needed to turn and bite the bullet and head for the capital, the centre of power, the centre of religious, state and occupier authority and the centre of opposition.

Jericho is a really interesting place! It’s about 15 miles east from Jerusalem, as the crow flies, maybe 18 or 20 by the road through the desert. It sits, just west of the River Jordan, north of the Dead Sea. It’s probably the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world (over 10,000 years). It's the city taken by the Israelites under Joshua after the death of Moses when, after their years of wandering, they finally crossed the River Jordan into the Promised Land. And, did you know this? It is the lowest place on the face of the earth that is not covered by water, sitting about 800 feet below sea level!  (That’s about 1000 feet below where we are just now).  And Jerusalem, where Jesus was going, is about 2500 feet above sea level!

So the road from Jericho to Jerusalem looks like this on a map:

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But it is actually like this if you have to climb it!

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It’s steep and it’s very hot and it’s dusty and it goes through the desert, but when you get close, right up here, about two miles from Jerusalem and near the villages of Bethany and Bethphage, you come to the Mount of Olives. It’s green, especially in the Mediterranean spring at Passover when Jesus travelled, and ahead lies the glorious city of Jersualem.

Jesus was coming in by the pilgrim route, at Passover, the great feast commemorating the deliverance of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. He was coming out of the desert. He was coming in symbolically from a place that went way back in Israel’s history. There was nothing spontaneous or sudden about this journey. He knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it.

Interesting too, isn’t it, that he was coming in from the lowest bit of dry land on the planet.  “Watch what is happening,” he seems to me to be saying, “watch from the depths of the earth to the most glorious places man has created”.  Watch from far back in your history. Something very fundamental is going on. No wonder when the Pharisees told him to command his disciples to be quiet Jesus replied that, if he did, the stones themselves would start to shout. This is the one we believe is the Son of God himself, the one through whom all things in the whole of Creation, from all those people, to us, to the rocks themselves, were made. Watch and see what he does and ask yourself why he does it.

“Look at this, all you men and women of power,“  “What do you think of this?”

“Look at this all you people,” “Is this what authority and power truly look like?”

“Look at this, the whole of Creation.”

And not only was Jesus coming in geographically from a place going way back in Israel’s history and from the deepest dry land on the surface of the earth, it was the precise way in which he arrived that would have rung bells with every single person watching.

In those days, far more than the place our society has reached this century, the people would have known their scriptures and been likely to use the imagery of their scriptures in their everyday lives. This may, I am pretty sure, have been more the case in European society earlier in our own history, to use Bible imagery in everyday life, but it is more rarely the case now. But I am sure that for the great majority of those watching that day, both the religious authorities and the mass of the people, these following words would have been very familiar to them. They are words from the Old Testament Book of Zechariah and they speak about the king who is to come, the future king of Israel, the Messiah:

“Rejoice, rejoice, people of Zion!

Shout for joy, you people of Jerusalem!

Look, your King is coming to you!

He comes triumphant and victorious…..

But humble and riding on a donkey

On a colt, the foal of a donkey”.

There was absolutely nothing spontaneous or sudden about this journey. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it.

He must have arranged some time ago for the colt to be ready when he needed it. Well, that is speculation perhaps but even if he hadn’t pre-arranged it, even if the owners were happy to let the colt go when the disciples came to the village and started, as Jesus had told them, to untie it, Jesus knew exactly what the watching crowds and the religious leaders would think. He had spent 3 years out there teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God, 3 years  constantly demonstrating the power of the Kingdom through his healing and through the authority with which he spoke. So now he chose the unridden young donkey to ride in to the capital those last two miles, precisely because he wanted those watching to see the fulfilment of those Old Testament words…. “triumphant and victorious,” riding humbly on a young donkey. “Look, here is your King!” “Look, here is the one you have been waiting for!”

Now it may not be precisely, in political terms at least, like cycling into the capital of North Korea holding a long flag on which you have written, “Democratic elections will set the people free!” Not least because I doubt that in North Korea many people would risk standing at the roadside and cheering, but in terms of an in-your-face challenge to the established powers of the day, there may well be some similarities!

And the outcome was, eventually, what you might expect in North Korea today. We’ve thought about where Jesus was coming from and we’ll ask where he was going to in a few minutes.

But first I just want to ask briefly what this picture itself might have to say to us. This picture of a King, riding on a little donkey with the crowds waving nothing more than their coats and branches from the trees in the fields. Because, for me, it speaks something of real authority and of speaking truth to power. He didn’t slip in by the back gate at night time, when no one was watching. He didn’t get the crowds waving their sticks and knives. He did not arrive as a figure of apparently great human power and might. He came in humbly and peacefully and with complete integrity. He came in as a teacher and a healer, bringing a message of the urgent need to turn back to God.  No wonder the crowds in Jerusalem flocked to hear him. No wonder Luke records a few verses later that “all the people kept listening to him, not wanting to miss a single word.”

You see just occasional glimpses of this sort of approach in our modern world.  Martin Luther King perhaps on the road from Selma to Montgomery, turning the marchers around when the way was blocked by the state troopers and walking peacefully back the way they had come. Nelson Mandela perhaps, newly released from prison, telling the huge crowds at Durban to take their guns and their knives and their pangas (their machetes) and throw them into the sea. Just glimpses of real authority and speaking truth to power.

It’s something about the courage to do what is right when everyone else might think you need to follow the way of the world because doing what is right is surely impossible. Compare the moral courage of Mandela with the current  South African President Zuma allowing the government to channel £15M to upgrade his country home but being forced to repay part of it when it seems some of that public money must have been going to him personally or to his mates. Compare Martin Luther King with Donald Trump. Who to you seems to be speaking truth and acting with integrity and who following the way of the world that is highly unlikely to lead to peace?

Power and authority are dangerous, as we all know, but they can be exercised with complete integrity. Pray God for political leaders with the character to do this.

And Jesus quite deliberately rode into Jerusalem on a little donkey.

As he got close, Luke reports, and saw the city ahead, he wept over it, saying “If only you knew today what is needed for peace! But you cannot see it! The time will come when your enemies will surround you with barricades, blockade you and close you in from every side. They will completely destroy you and the people within your walls; not a single stone will they leave in its place, because you did not recognize the time when God came to save you.”

And he immediately went into the Temple, which would have been the first part of Jerusalem you came to if you rode in that way, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers saying God’s house should be a house of prayer but you have made it into a den of thieves.  

Absolutely everyone would have been watching. Not just the people, not just the regular Temple goers. This was the capital of an occupied land. The religious leaders and teachers would have been watching. The Romans would have been watching. One hint of really serious rebellion and out come the crucifixes.

Speaking truth to power without fear and with complete integrity. Goodness me, it is impressive.  Wave your palm cross in the air today but don't wave it lightly…….

Gentle Jesus meek and mild? Don't give me that nonsense….the religious leaders at least wanted to kill him from the moment he got off the donkey and opened his mouth.

Pause..

And that is precisely what he did. Without any apparent fear Jesus did not hesitate to speak every day about the need to turn back to God, about God’s Kingdom, about resurrection from the dead, about the persecution coming to Jerusalem.

And as it’s Luke gospel and as I may not get the chance to speak on this bit of the Bible again for some time I could not resist the opportunity to bring in two historical reminders of precisely that time, two items mentioned only by the gospel writers Mark and Luke as items Jesus used to teach the people in those short days and weeks after his entry into Jerusalem. One is a silver Roman coin, a denarius or Tribute penny. You may remember Jesus showed them the Emperor’s head and told them to give Caesar what was Caesar’s but to give God what was God’s. This one dates from the reign of Emperor Tiberius 14-33 AD. It will not be the same one, surely, but it comes from the same time. And the other is a an ancient copper Lepton, a coin known as a widow’s mite as Jesus praised the widow who dropped into the Temple collection two precisely like this, that were all she had. This one dates to the reign of Pontius Pilate around 31 AD. It will not be one of the ones the widow dropped in, surely, but it comes from exactly the same time. (Don’t worry I got them from a very reputable coin dealer so they are almost certainly genuine!) Please catch me afterwards if you want a closer look.

But the reason I brought them in today was mainly because they reminded me – and so I hope they can remind us - that on Palm Sunday we remember historical events. These are made from palm leaf because the crowds did cut down palm branches.

So we remember the entry into Jerusalem of Jesus himself. He knew exactly what he was doing, he knew exactly why he was doing it and he knew exactly where it would lead. There was only so long the enthusiasm of the people could protect him from the inevitability of his arrest and death. But he knew he had to do this.

Because for Jesus doing what had to be done was not merely a peaceful political challenge, not merely a show of moral and religious integrity and authority.

Ultimately, Jesus was engaged on a much bigger canvass, doing the will of God to break, in history and in real time, once and for all the power of sin and death, so that our relationship with God can be completely restored, not by anything we can do but only by what He has done. You might think of it as the ultimate act of complete integrity and authority as good triumphs for all time over the worst that evil can do and hope is restored for eternity. He had spoken about this already. Go back just one chapter in Luke’s gospel and you will see it: Luke Chapter 18, verses 31 to 33:

“Jesus took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, “Listen! We are going to Jerusalem where everything the prophets wrote about the Son of Man will come true. He will be handed over to the Gentiles, who will mock him, insult him and spit on him. They will whip him and kill him, but three days later he will rise to life.”

At that point the disciples had no idea what he was talking about, but later of course they must have remembered.

In the meantime there was an awful lot to go through and we shall remember it all this coming week as the greatest drama is played out and the crowd who welcomed him fade away or turn against him. Even his closest right hand disciple denied he ever knew him as the full force of human power was brought to bear.

I have no idea what I would have done, do you?

One thing however you might like to do this morning as you wave your palm cross or leave it this week in your window, on your mantelpiece, tuck it behind a picture on your wall at home or display it somewhere in your car is to think of those who today, almost certainly as we sit here this morning, will be being asked whether they follow Jesus or are willing to deny him, knowing that the outcome of their words may be punitive taxes, slavery or even death. Pray for them as the full force of human power is still brought to bear.

And prepare this week for Easter. Watch and wait and let God speak to you about your life, in the light of everything he said and did through his Son. Amen