Scripture can be found here and here
This day brings us right into the heart of our faith. Right into its deepest mystery.
We begin with a procession. Not a very big or impressive procession. It’s the week leading up to Passover, so pilgrims from all over the known world are streaming into the holy city, Jerusalem.
Jesus is among them.
And, at a certain point, or so my theory goes, some of those pilgrims recognize the young rabbi who had been teaching, and healing, and casting out demons, and setting buffets out for thousands of people at a time.
Actually, Matthew’s gospel tells us this story: The very last thing Jesus had done, even on his way to Jerusalem, had been to heal two men of blindness. They’d called to him from the side of the road, where they sat begging for their bread: Lord! Let our eyes be opened! And he’d healed them. And they got up, and they followed him.
They are walking with Jesus, into the holy city.
They are among the pilgrims coming for the great Passover celebration.
At some point, Jesus sends his disciples for his sweet ride:
a mother donkey and her foal.
It’s not a very big or impressive procession. But word spreads among the crowd;
Here he is. Here he comes. And they began to sing:
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
Save us, they’re singing. Save us, Son of David!
But “Hosanna” is something you sing to the one you know will save you. The one who has already saved you. The one who has nothing to prove. The one who doesn’t need the biggest procession. The one willing to ride on a donkey.
This is how Palm Sunday begins.
Then, we arrive at Passion Sunday.
We fast-forward through a week filled with Jesus teaching, and responding to challenges, and being betrayed by one of his closest friends. We zoom past the supper, and arrive at the day of dread, the day no one wants to come: the day of crucifixion.
Something like twenty years later, the apostle Paul, remembering that day,
writes a letter to a church in Philippi.
He writes from prison, to encourage the church that is so far away;
but his letter brings them closer to one another. He begins:
If in your walk of faith, you have found anything like encouragement, or consolation, or sharing of the Spirit, or compassion, or sympathy… Do unto others as has been done unto you. Embrace humility. Look out for one another.
Do what Jesus did.
Then, through the words of his letter, Paul begins to sing.
Paul quotes to this congregation a song they know, a song they love, a song that proclaims what they all deeply trust about Jesus. It would be like your pastor writing you a letter of encouragement, and in the middle of it saying, “You can trust in God’s love, in God’s Amazing Grace…how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” And you would know it, and you might start to smile, and some of you might even start to sing along.
Their song tells of the deep mystery, hinted at in that humble procession into the holy city.
The Lord of the universe, nailed to a tree.
The One who, though he is in God and of God and from God and with God,
doesn’t claim it, or revel in it, or Lord it over us.
The one who, instead, empties himself.
Who becomes, not master, but slave: not working for himself, but for others.
Who yields to God and to circumstances and events, even to the point of death.
Even to the point of the worst, most ignominious, shameful death:Death on a cross.
And because our God is the God of great reversals:
The one whom God exalts. Whom God raises up, and raises high.
But all, and only, because he empties himself.
Because he has nothing to prove.
He doesn’t need the biggest procession.
He comes humbly, riding a mother donkey, still nursing her foal.
This day brings us right into the heart of our faith. Right into its deepest mystery:
God-With-Us. Not only God-With-Us, but God-For-Us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.