Palm Sunday
Palmarum
Sunday of the Passion
March 20, 2016
Palm Sunday stands at the head of Holy Week. As Jesus
entered into Jerusalem, we enter into this week where we encounter the most
remarkable events of Christianity. When Jesus entered Jerusalem He knew exactly
why He was. He knew what would happen to Him. I seriously doubt anyone there
laying down their coats and palm branches understood the gravity of Jesus
entering the holy city as a king. They hailed Him as such, but the Collect we
prayed a little while ago speaks of His great humility and patience. The
prophecy from Zechariah which Matthew quoted in the Gospel reading speaks of
Jesus as coming in humility.
And even though Jesus didn’t prohibit their cries
in hailing Him as the one coming in the name of the Lord, He knew that He
wasn’t the one they were looking for. He knew that come Thursday night all would
desert Him. He was well aware that on Friday He would be hanging on the cross
alone, taking upon Himself all the sin of the world. Palm Sunday was the kind
of glory they were excited about. Jesus had His eyes set on the cross.
And if we are going to pray and take it seriously
what we are praying for, then we will see Palm Sunday for what it is. It is the
gateway into humility and patience. It stands at the head of suffering and
trial. These are not the things we would think to rejoice in, but if we see through
the expectations of the people and look instead into what Jesus was bringing
about we will see that there is indeed something to rejoice in. Even though it
means suffering and humility, patience and trial.
When we see exactly what Jesus was doing and how He
was bringing it about, we learn to pray. And the prayer we pray today, a week
from Easter, is that God would mercifully grant that we may follow the example
of His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ’s great humility and patience and be made
partakers of His resurrection. Being made partakers of His resurrection is
something worth rejoicing in, but it does not happen apart from following the
example our Savior’s great humility and patience.
That is why those crowds on Palm Sunday would have
done well to stick with Jesus all the way to the end. To see Him as He was
being arrested, and mocked, and beaten, hanging on a cross as the one who has
come in the name of the Lord. And even knowing that in His death all was not
lost but was rather the path He chose and that God would bring about the
greatest good in raising Him from the grave. There is no resurrection apart
from death. When we pray to be made partakers of the resurrection of our Lord
we are praying that we follow Him into suffering and death.
This prayer is what Paul calls for in the Epistle
reading. He says,
Have
this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was
in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but
made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness
of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted
Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The key here is Paul’s words, “which is yours in Christ
Jesus.” How we follow the example of Jesus, how we have the mind of Christ
among ourselves, is that it is ours in Him. That is why we pray God to
mercifully grant this to us. We certainly aren’t ready for suffering and trial.
We aren’t gung-ho about humility and patience. It is Christ who chose this path
willingly and we have this mind among ourselves by virtue of Baptism.
In Baptism you entered into that descent into
death, being joined with Christ in a death like His. And having gone through
that descent you were raised up in a resurrection like His. You were raised up
to a new mind, in which you see suffering as cause for rejoicing because you
are joining in with Christ so that you may be raised up ever higher, partaking
of His resurrection. You can never know what resurrection fully means for you
until you know what it means that you must die to your sin. You must have the mind
of Christ in yourself. You must see the example of His great humility and
patience as something you embrace.
Otherwise you are living in your sin. You must die
to your sin. You must repent of your sin so that it is dead to you and you are
dead to it. Christ has no sin but in humility He became a servant, taking your
sin into Himself and to death in His own. When you were Baptized you were joined
into that death and therefore joined into the death of your sin. All of this
was accomplished by Him. That you have died to your sin and have been raised to
eternal life is a gift, given to you by grace.
This is how we know that it is all of Christ. God
the Father sent Him to where we are and He orchestrated salvation for us.
Knowing what would come about in the closing days of Holy Week, Jesus and His
disciples went to the Mount of Olives. There He sent two disciples to the
nearby village where immediately they would find a donkey tied up. Their task
was simple, untie it and bring it to Him. What would happen if anyone said anything
to them? It wasn’t their donkey, what should they do then? Jesus told them to
say, simply, “The Lord has need of it,” and immediately they would send the
donkey with them.
Did Jesus know the owner of the donkey? Did Jesus
know the disciples would meet resistance, or was He simply prepared for the
possibility? We don’t know how the details shake out, but we do know that Jesus
was orchestrating this whole thing. Jesus had come to bring about salvation and
He was going to bring it about in His way. His way had already been made known
in the Scriptures.
Matthew says of Jesus’ actions in sending the
disciples for the donkey, “This was to fulfill what was spoken through the
prophet, ‘Rejoice, daughter of Zion. Behold, your King is coming to you, humble
and riding on a donkey.’” This signified what kind of king He was. He was a
humble King. He was a King who was coming to bring about salvation. His great
humility and patience was simply the expression of His love for sinners.
The disciples did according to what Jesus had commanded
them. This was not rocket science. All the disciples had to do was go get a
donkey. And yet, the commands of the Lord are what brings about His will. They
brought the donkey to Him and He sat on it. People laid their coats and palm
branches on the road. The crowds were going ahead of Him and following Him and
exclaiming, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He who comes in the name
of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.”
There’s no question it was a glorious day. The King
was riding into Jerusalem to be the King. The one who was coming in the name of
the Lord was coming to bring about the Lord’s salvation. But what all those
people didn’t realize is that the true glory of that day was the glory of the
King who was coming humbly, as a servant. He was bringing about a salvation in
which there would be no doubt that it was accomplished because He would
accomplish it completely. He would do it Himself.
And because He would, we would partake in His resurrection.
He has and we do. Amen.
SDG
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