Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

I suspect that if you took a poll of church members,

Palm Sunday would probably be our third-favorite church celebration.

Right up there after Christmas and Easter.

Now, strictly theologically speaking,

we probably ought to rank Pentecost

higher than Palm Sunday.

Coming of the Holy Spirit,

birthday of the church, and all that.

But our appreciation of Pentecost is more … intellectual.

Palm Sunday is fun.

Many of us probably remember Palm Sunday celebrations

dating all the way back to our childhood.

In some churches I’ve been a part of,

that’s about all the kids get to do in worship all year,

wave palms on Palm Sunday.

But it’s a memorable story for a child:

Jesus, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey,

and all the people singing and shouting Hosanna,

throwing palm branches on the road,

even throwing some of their clothes into the road.

Sounds just like a parade!

And we all know what fun those are.

How great, to have a parade in church.

A few churches are even brave enough

to try involving a real donkey.

Even for us grownups,

Palm Sunday seems like a good time to celebrate.

After all, it’s really the only time in Jesus’ lifetime

that he was an unqualified success.

When multitudes of people sang and shouted and welcomed him

to Jerusalem, the holy city.

A time when even the high priests and the Pharisees,

those perennial party-poopers,

couldn’t spoil the mood or steal the show.

It’s party time in Jerusalem,

with Jesus as the guest of honor.

But did you know that some churches

barely recognize Palm Sunday at all?

They call this Sunday before Easter Passion Sunday.

Rather than focusing on the triumphal entry into Jerusalem,

they emphasize Jesus’ upcoming death,

his predictions of it,

his last days with his disciples.

They feel it is important to stay with the mood of Lent,

a more meditative, penitential mood,

and save the celebrating for Easter.

And there’s something to be said for that …

We Protestant churches

tend to place so much emphasis on the resurrection,

and the empty cross,

that we gloss over the fact that

Jesus had to die in order to be raised.

Our friends in the Catholic churches, on the other hand,

have historically placed so much emphasis

on Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion,

that we sometimes wonder if they haven’t

just left him on the cross or in the tomb.

That’s a dilemma

that we have to live with in the Christian faith.

That tension between life and death,

between the joy of our faith,

and its sadness;

between the victory of the resurrection,

and the suffering of the cross.

But I’m getting ahead of myself –

this is starting to turn into an Easter sermon,

when all I really wanted to know is,

Should we be celebrating on Palm Sunday,

waving palms and whooping it up …

or should we save our celebrating until Easter?

There’s a part of me that says

we really ought to wait.

After all, that first Palm Sunday –

or whatever day of the week it was –

probably didn’t happen quite like we envision it anyway.

For one thing, it’s hard to imagine

that Jesus would have been that all-fired excited

about coming to Jerusalem.

He knew that in all probability he would die there.

Leading up to these events,

the gospel writers use the expression,

"Jesus ‘set his face’ toward Jerusalem."

I’ve always thought that was

kind of a funny way to say it …

As if he took his hands and grabbed his head,

and pointed it in the right direction,

and then everything else followed automatically!

But it is true

that he had to make that decision

about whether to head for the city

or to avoid it for as long as possible.

You see, as long as he kept his distance,

preached only in the small towns

and out in the country,

gathered up a few ignorant peasant types to follow him …

Well, under those circumstances he was a nuisance,

but not much of a threat.

But Jesus knew

that as soon as he appeared in the holy city,

where the political and religious leaders were,

that they weren’t going to stand for it.

The minute he began

preaching his message at their doorstep,

gaining followers in their city,

he was doomed.

Even if he wasn’t directly challenging their power,

everything he said that gave God first place,

took authority away from them.

And, it placed them at risk from Rome,

which believed that it should have first place.

They couldn’t afford to let Jesus gain an appreciative audience

in Israel’s largest city, with its largest population,

where both Jewish and Roman power were centered.

Jesus knew all this.

He knew that once he showed up in Jerusalem,

he was, in a sense, forcing their hand

even if that was not his primary intention.

Coming into the holy city

was the beginning of the end.

Surely Jesus didn’t feel much like celebrating

on that first Palm Sunday.

For another thing,

it’s very likely that most of the crowd on that first Palm Sunday

were celebrating for the wrong reasons …

Most of them had never seen Jesus before …

in fact, many there in Jerusalem that day

had probably never even heard of him.

But oh, they’d heard promises, they had heard rumors,

of a coming Messiah.

They had waited a long time for him.

If there was any chance that this Jesus on a donkey was the one,

they wanted in on the party.

Even Jesus’ own disciples so often misunderstood him …

think of the number of times he rebuked Peter

for things that he said.

They – and all of Israel –

were looking for a king, a warrior, an earthly ruler,

who would deliver them from oppression by the Romans.

If this were finally the one … well,

who wouldn’t shout and holler,

and spread palm branches

and do whatever else your culture says is appropriate

to welcome a hero.

They wanted a conqueror,

but they got a victim.

They wanted a victory party;

instead, they got a funeral.

Surely if they had known all that in advance,

they would have called off the parade.

No need for celebrating

more of the same old sad story.

And for another thing!

It’s pretty clear in this morning’s text from Philippians,

and other places in the New Testament,

that Jesus’ exaltation comes

only after the crucifixion.

The heavenly celebrations begin

only after Good Friday and Easter.

So why should we be having earthly celebrations now?

Aren’t we jumping the gun a bit?

Shouldn’t we leave it until next Sunday?

But you know, the more I thought about all this,

the more dissatisfied I became with my arguments.

After all, very little in life is predictable.

We don’t know what’s going to happen next week,

or tomorrow, or even this afternoon.

And we can’t postpone our celebrating now

just because something unhappy might come along later.

For example … when a baby is born, we celebrate.

We don’t wait to have the baby shower

until after she’s grown up and we see that she turned out all right!

… do we?

When there is a wedding, we celebrate.

We don’t postpone it until we see

whether the marriage lasts five years,

or fifteen, or fifty.

When Christ comes into our lives, we celebrate.

Whether he’s on a donkey, or in a manger, or whatever,

his mere presence is cause for joy.

We will not know or understand him completely –

indeed, we cannot –

but his coming is by itself a reason to rejoice.

We’re not celebrating because we think that

from this point on he is going to solve all our problems for us,

and that from now on everything in life is going to run smoothly,

and we will never hurt, or suffer, or grieve, again.

It certainly didn’t happen that way for him!

Rather, we celebrate because he is here,

and he will be here with us

through whatever our lives dish out.

And that’s reason enough to celebrate.

So, we celebrate.

Yeah, we even ought to celebrate Palm Sunday.

It’s a good story for the children,

and for the child in all of us.

It’s a good reminder of the joy that God brings

when God comes into our lives.

So celebrate … party.

Wave the palms.

Sing the hosannas.

Just remember that the best …

and the worst …

are yet to come.

Amen.

© 2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)