Matthew 2: 1–17
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Lord, may we hear your voice this morning in the words spoken in your
name. Amen.
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It is no accident this morning that we find Jesus entering Jerusalem on
the back of a humble donkey, her foal trotting obediently behind
her. Nor is it an accident that people from Jerusalem turned out
in droves to cheer this little procession on, tearing branches off palm
trees that lined the road and waving those branches as they
shouted, “Hosanna! to the Son of David!” All
this week, in fact, this week we have come to call Holy, we will see
Jesus doing things that fulfill ancient scriptures. That donkey,
for instance, ridden by Messiah as he comes to Jerusalem, is the one
the sixth century prophet Zechariah foretold when he prophesied:
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
Triumphant and victorious is he,
Humble and riding on a donkey,
On a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Zechariah 9:9
The people knew, you see, what this sign meant. It meant Messiah
had finally come to them. So, they trusted they would soon be
delivered from Roman oppression. And – somehow — they
thought that deliverance would come without much struggle. For
they also knew the verses of Zechariah’s prophecy that immediately
followed, telling one and all that this king, this Messianic King,
would be a King of Peace. For hadn’t Zechariah said in the
very next breath,
He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
And the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall command peace to the nations.
Zechariah 9:10
No wonder, then, the people who lined the road into Jerusalem that day
greeted Jesus with palm branches and shouts of joy. Messiah had
finally come to Israel, and surely, peace and harmony would follow.
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But at the very same time this odd little parade was making its way
into the city from the north, another procession was riding in from the
west. And this second group was no humble, rag–tag
parade. This was a full cohort of Roman soldiers, 250 men strong,
dressed in scarlet, mounted on powerful horses and armed with flashing
swords. They came to Jerusalem, in fact, every year at
Passover. For Passover was the time of year that Jewish pilgrims
from every corner of the Empire came to Jerusalem to celebrate their
release from bondage in Egypt, their special status as God’s chosen
people. No wonder extra Roman soldiers came to Jerusalem every
year at this time; they feared riots breaking out all over the
city. In these high holy days, they knew it wouldn’t take
much to enflame an angry Jewish mob.
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The two parades represent both sides of our story this morning – the
peace–loving king riding into Jerusalem on a humble donkey and
the Roman soldiers who believed that might made right – wherever
they found themselves. Somewhere in between were the priests and
Temple officials – capable of playing it either way. This
was the fraught situation Jesus was riding into.
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So, no; things wouldn’t turn out quite as peacefully as the
people who greeted Jesus on that long’ago afternoon thought they
would. In fact, part of the problem was their certainty that
everything, now, would turn out well. If this man
really were Messiah, they thought – then peace should
follow – Right? But if there was trouble, some kind
of disturbance – well, maybe he wasn’t their
all–powerful Messiah after all. Maybe, God forbid, he was
a fraud, a fraud who had misled them. Their expectations,
you see, were absolute, set in stone. And when those expectations
were not fulfilled – they were furious.
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Some of us aren’t so very different today. For we, too,
want to keep things simple and harmonious. If Messiah has
arrived, then let’s celebrate. Let’s sing “All
glory, laud and honor” on Palm
Sunday . . . and follow that when
Easter dawns with “Welcome, happy morning.” Maybe
we can just skip the unpleasantness in between – the betrayal,
the suffering, the dark valley and cross. I know that sounds
simplistic, but there are an awful lot of people around us today who
want to see things that way. Simple, uncomplicated,
harmonious. But that would leave out the heart of the
story . . . the gift given through
suffering that brought us all new birth.
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And that, in fact, is what Christ’s Passion means. It means
that Jesus Christ suffered and died to give us all the gift of new
life, new birth. The gift cost him dearly – but it resulted
in something wonderful for us. And that tells us that our own
suffering, the painful struggles in our own lives – can result in
something meaningful for our own lives. Charles Henry Brent,
the great Episcopal missionary to the Philippines in the early
20th century, once wrote:
“There is a law as deep as God that the glory of ultimate
success can be reached only through suffering. However
inexplicable the mystery may be, human life, in order to progress,
must have suffering or suffering’s
equivalent . . . The
world’s [most significant] work has always been
done by persons who have suffered pains or taken pains.”
In other words, we need the mixed signals of Palm Sunday. We
need the happy parade with children waving palm branches and greeting
Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And we need the
Passion account, the story of Jesus’ betrayal, his trial on
trumped up charges, his crucifixion.
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If you are struggling this morning with those mixed signals, just know
you are not the first to struggle, and you probably won’t be the
last. The Gnostic Gospels, written about the same time as our own
Christian Gospel accounts, omit any mention of the
crucifixion — entirely. Maybe that is why, a couple of
years ago, they were once again wildly popular – because we live
in a world that prefers parades and palm branches to any mention of
Christ’s Passion, Christ’s suffering and death. What
Reinhold Niebuhr, the great German theologian, said about that was:
This is a view that insists on a God without
wrath . . . bringing men and women
without sin . . . into a kingdom
without judgment . . . through a
Christ without a cross.
In other words, the simplistic view, the happy–clappy view,
simply isn’t the way God does things.
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God’s way is to allow us to struggle with the hard patches in
our lives – because as we live through them, we learn
something; we grow.
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God’s way is to take even the difficult details of our already
complicated lives and transform them into something beautiful.
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God’s way isn’t to abolish our enemies; it’s to
tell us to pray for our enemies and forgive them – because once
they sense our love, once they realize we have forgiven
them — He can finally reach them.
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God’s way, you see, is a way of love. And it will take most
of us our whole lives long to learn it.
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I bid you all a Holy Week.
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Amen.
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