200405 Palm Sunday Order of Service <--click here for bulletin
Sermon manuscript:
Parades are a time of celebration and pageantry. You don’t
have a parade at the time of tragedy and defeat. Parades are for winners. Today
we hear of a parade that happened in Jerusalem. The winner is Jesus. He was the
one who was being celebrated.
John tells us that one of the reasons why there was a large
crowd surrounding Jesus as he entered the city was that they had heard about
what he had done to Lazarus. Lazarus was a man who had died not long before
this. He remained dead for four days. His body had started to decompose. But
the composer of the Universe showed up—that’s Jesus—and told Lazarus to come
out of his tomb. And he did. God’s people had had prophets in the past who were
able to bring life back to the dead, but that was very rare. It also happened
only with those who had freshly died. Nothing like this had ever happened
before. Jesus had told Mary and Martha, Lazarus’s sisters, that he is the
resurrection and the life. That indeed seemed to be the case.
And so the people were wondering, might this be the Christ?
Why, yes, that must be so. You hear them say that in the rousing chants as they
marched along: “Hosanna,” (which means “please, save us.”) “Hosanna,
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel.” They
knew who Jesus was and they acted accordingly. There was a great deal of
enthusiasm and warmth in that crowd. They were moved to produce song and dance
and art spontaneously—which always makes the best kind of such things. They cut
palm branches and waved them. They put their own clothes on the road for
Jesus’s donkey to walk on them.
Here we see a little foretaste of heaven. We creatures were
made to praise God. It is our highest and most fulfilling activity. The problem
we have while in this life is that our heart is so often not in it. And our
heart is not in it because we are weighed down with cares and worries and
sadness. That is why we Christians always enjoy when a little bit of heaven
breaks into our gray and dreary lives and lifts up our hearts—lifts them up
unto the Lord. It is good and right and salutary that we should at all times
and in all places give thanks to the Lord. Nobody had to tell these people to
do what they did. They did what they did because they wanted to, more than
anything. Luke tells us that the Pharisees were appalled by this creative
worship, but Jesus tells them that if the people didn’t cry out, then the
stones would have to sing. The joy simply couldn’t be contained.
Heaven is a good place.
But the sour faces of the Pharisees show us that not
everyone thought this parade was heavenly. The Pharisees had been convinced
long before this that Jesus was no good. They were irritated that the people
were being taken in by Jesus, whom they regarded as a false teacher. They had
tried to get it across to the people that Jesus was a Sabbath breaker, and
therefore couldn’t be any good, but the people weren’t listening to them. The
Pharisees are frustrated, as you heard in our Gospel reading. “We aren’t
getting anywhere,” they said. “Look, the whole world is going after him.”
But they were exaggerating, as cranky churchmen are liable
to do, when they said that the whole world was going after him. Not all of
Jerusalem was there. Pontius Pilate certainly wasn’t there. He didn’t know
anything about Jesus until the Jews brought him before him so that Jesus could
be put to death. The vast majority of Jerusalem was going about their workday,
for this was not a day of rest for them. According to the Jewish mindset their Saturday
is our Sunday. Therefore their Sunday is our Monday. Sunday was the beginning
of the work week for them. These Jews who joined in on the parade had to skip
work to do so, which they gladly did. It’s not every day that the Messiah comes
to town. But most people paid no mind to what was going on.
They should have, though. Something was happening here that
was more important for their happiness and blessedness than anything that they
might otherwise do. We can see this from Jesus’s words this morning. When some
Greek people came to Philip and Andrew and said that they wanted to see Jesus, and
Philip and Andrew went and told Jesus. Then Jesus knew that the end had come.
The Old Testament is full of prophesies that in the end times the Gentiles, the
non-Jews, are going to be streaming into Zion. Now here were some Gentiles who
wanted to see Jesus.
Immediately Jesus is troubled. Jesus is true man, after all.
He is not made of stone. He knew there’d be hell to pay. There is a large part
of him that wants to say, “Father, deliver me from this hour,” but it
was for this very hour that he came. And what was to happen at this hour? Jesus
tells us: “Now is this world judged. Now the ruler of this world will be
thrown out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to
myself.” He said this to indicate what kind of death he was going to die.
What does this mean? How is this world judged? This world is
judged for its unbelief in our Creator who made us. All manner of various
things are pursued with gusto, with hope for advancement and blessing—not so
with our God. We have been estranged from God by our disobedience, which is bad
enough. But what makes it even worse is that we haven’t cared. We care about
all manner of things, but not our good God who created us in his image.
And what does it mean that the ruler of this world is thrown
out? The ruler of this world is the devil. All disbelief and all idolatry
ultimately trace back to him and his lies. He lied in the beginning when he
promised that Eve and Adam would be better blessed by following after his
pursuits and ideas rather than being obedient to the word and will of God. Ever
since then he has had tremendous power over all people. We are born under his
lordship and would remain under his lordship, if we were not born again by
being baptized with Jesus’s baptism. He is thrown out. The devil’s reign of
lies and death come to an end with the preaching of the Gospel. For the Gospel
is the truth and it gives eternal life.
The first preaching of the Gospel took place in the Garden.
Unimaginable woe had come upon God’s good creation with the fall into sin, but
God did not forsake Adam and Eve and their children. He promised to send a
Savior who would crush the serpent’s head. The devil’s lordship, under which
Adam and Eve had voluntarily entered, would come to an end. And that would
happen by the severe wounding of this Savior. In the crushing of the serpent’s
head this Savior’s heel would be crushed. It was by death that Adam and Eve and
their children would be set free from their slavery to the devil, his world,
and their own sin. They would be set free to be children of God now in time,
with the fullness of that inheritance being given in the life of the world to
come.
This takes us to the tremendous words: “And I, when I am
lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Here we have a
statement that could be written large above all space and time—even existence
itself. What is life all about? It is about the sacrifice of the Son of God
which reconciles all sinners to the Father by virtue of the excellency of the
sacrifice. The Word of this accomplished fact goes out over the face of the
whole earth. When and where it pleases the Holy Spirit he creates faith in this
promise. Those who believe have received the Holy Spirit. They have come to
know their God. They are no longer let astray by idols. They are no longer
afraid of God and his wrath. They regard God as their dear Father and that they
are his dear children, so that with all boldness and confidence they may speak
to him like dear children with their dear Father.
The truth that Jesus draws all people to himself, and
through him, to the Father, is the truth that all other truths must submit to.
There is nothing more important. It doesn’t matter what might happen to us
otherwise. Whatever else might happen can’t separate us from the love of God
that is given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. All things are made right by the
blood of God shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of their sins.
It is the blood, the death, the cross that reconciles—not any merit or
worthiness in you. Therefore you may have comfort and joy regardless of what
you have done or left undone. The Father is satisfied with Jesus. Therefore the
Father is also satisfied with you for whom Jesus has died.
We are congregated together this Palm Sunday under strange
circumstances. In one way or another you are all hearing my voice coming from a
speaker—perhaps in your car or perhaps in your home. We might feel as though our
circumstances are so strange that we can’t at all relate to the people who
greeted Jesus as he made his way into Jerusalem. What kind of parade do we have
here as we sit in our cars or in our homes? But that is not true. Although we
might be stuck in our cars or stuck in our homes, we still may sing our praises
to Jesus, just like they did. Hosanna, loud hosanna! Please save us. Blessed is
he who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus is the King of Israel. Jesus is the
King of the world. He has graciously drawn us to himself. We know that because
he has told us.
Just as not all of Jerusalem did not go out to great Jesus,
because they had better things to do, so it is also today. Folks look for their
blessing elsewhere. They are busy in this way and that way. They might think
our little parade today is strange and can’t do a darned thing to fix this world’s
problems.
You know that isn’t true. There is no problem that is too
big for Jesus to handle. Sin, death, and the devil all have to give way to him.
And so what is a virus? Even if this virus should infect you and kill you, it
still has gained nothing. The end point of your life remains the same whether
you live a short time or a long time on this earth. The end point of your life
is the resurrection from the dead when all powers and principalities are put
under Jesus’s feet. In that resurrection your flesh will be purified from all your
sin. All evil will forever be confined in hell. Then you will sing like you’ve
never sang before. Then you will love, like you’ve never loved before. Then you
will live, like you’ve never lived before.
In anticipation of this we will already sing, love, and
live. I wish we would all be able to hear each other better when we sing, but
certainly God hears us. When we close our service this morning we will sing a
hymn to Jesus: “Ride on, ride on in majesty.” Then you will be given the
opportunity to thank Jesus for riding on in lowly pomp, riding on to die. He
did it for you. He has saved you.
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