If you ask children, and I suspect many adults, to name three holidays celebrated by the
Church, most would answer Christmas, Easter, and Palm Sunday in that order. Now come on, be honest, how many of
you were thinking "I would have said Epiphany, Transfiguration, or Pentecost"? Clearly all three of the
aforementioned are joyful celebrations, and as children we would make the connection that we get to take something
away from each one. Children would also connect Christmas to Santa Claus, Easter to the Easter Bunny, but Palm
Sunday to Jesus alone. As such it is the one well recognized and exclusively "sacred" event of our tradition.
A theological triumph, and all you really get is a palm!
That's why, one of the first things you might notice about the account of this event in Luke's gospel is that
there are no palms. No mention of the stripping of branches and the waving of same which forms the basis of our
celebration for most of us. Remember that Luke was the only non-Jewish writer, and palms were the symbol of Jewish
nationalism. Luke really wasn't concerned with this triumphal entry being about nationalism. Instead, he has them
throwing their cloaks on the donkey and the road as a sign of loyalty to the one who passes over them. A way of
saying that their allegiance was to Christ, and Christ alone.
It's the kind of universal loyalty and humility that Paul envisioned when he wrote to the Philippians in our
epistle lesson saying: "Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Creator."
Such jubilance will always be admonished by those who fail to recognize it for themselves! "Teacher, order
your disciples to stop." You are becoming an embarrassment! Ever been so excited about what you were doing
only to be chastised for your excitement? Have you ever been there? So excited, caught up in the enthusiasm of
a moment, only to be chastised by someone who wasn't quite where you were at the time?
In scripture as in real estate a basic rule of interpreting values has always been "location, location,
location." That is very true in the case of our Gospel lesson for this morning. It is the final week of his
earthly life, and Jesus is entering the holy city in triumph. All accounts, as well as historic tradition have
Jesus making the descent from Mt. Olivet, riding a donkey, and entering by the eastern or Golden Gate. There were
originally twelve gates to the city of Jerusalem, one for each of the tribes, and this one got its name from the
fact that it was the first one illuminated and thus transformed to radiance by the morning sun. That has important
symbolic connotations in the Bible which continue throughout the middle east even today.
Since the sun was long considered a sign of the resurrection, in some traditions believed to be consumed each
night by the moon and reborn every morning, the eastern side of the town was the favored place for burials. The
corpse was placed in such a position as to be looking in the direction of the sunrise, with the belief that those
fortunate dead would be the first to see the "good news" coming with the rising sun.
To this very day that valley known as the Kidron, coming from Mt. Olivet to the eastern gate is one gigantic
cemetery. So you need to picture this procession not moving through "pillared court and temple," or even
city streets, --but through thousands of tombs.
Back then fewer people could afford markers and monuments, but everyone remembered the place their loved one
had been interred by leaving at each visit small stones as a sign of remembrance. If you visit a Jewish cemetery
today you will still see piles of small stones on those headstones where there are relatives or friends left to
come by.
Early on in the Old Testament such stone piles were first left as markers for future travelers. They called them
"Ebenezers" - signs of remembrance to point the way.
There are many other familiars references to stones and rocks in the gospels with related implications.
There is Simon's name change to Peter or Petra
which means "rock" following his confession of
Jesus as the Christ, a symbol of solid conviction.
Jesus' confrontation with those who were about to
kill the unnamed woman caught in adultery with
the challenge "Let the one who is without sin cast
the first stone," - a symbol of judgment.
That great rock placed before the tomb itself on
Good Friday as a "barrier" or boundary marker-
a concern for everyone but God.
Jesus' response to the criticism of his disciples' jubilant display of affection and honor, "I tell you,
if these were silent, the very stones would shout out," is a reference to the long history of righteous acts
of remembrance they are passing through at that very moment. In fact, in other accounts you may remember he counters
those who trust in their own heritage by saying that God could raise up children from these very "stones."
To get from where you are to where you are going, you have to be willing
to be in between. It's an obvious fact of life - there is no way out, only
through. Holy Week should be savored not sped through. Every life is mirrored in this last week of Jesus' earthly
life: the adulation of Palm Sunday, the leave-taking of Holy Thursday, the private Gethsemane's prayer, the abandonment
of Good Friday, Judas' betrayal, Peter's denials, the humiliations before Pilate and Herod, the clamor of the crowd
for his death, the dark night of the soul, and the hope of resurrection.
On Palm Sunday the message is simply that Jesus is passing by, and that "The Lord needs you." How will
we respond?
In Jesus Christ Superstar, amidst the celebration of his entry the crowd sings Hey-sanna, Ho-sanna, sanna, sanna
ho, but there is also another voice which says: Tell the rabble to be quiet we anticipate a riot
This common crowd is much too loud
Tell the mob who sing your song that they are fools and they are wrong
They are a curse, they should disperse.
Which part do we play?
Is the possibility that God might be doing a new thing so threatening that we would rather hang on to what is
familiar than experience the joy of God's celebration? Are we caught between the keepers of the system and the
word of God; caught between the stability of the past and the painful beginning of a new future?
There are some things that simply cannot be kept quiet. There are some things that are so major, so earth-shaking,
so demanding that they simply will not go away, no matter how much we try to ignore them or dampen them or "nicen"
them up or command them to be otherwise. Some things are just so obvious that they cannot be hidden.
Don't fail to see the righteous acts of kindness that were done for your behalf and say "You are of all
people most abandoned."
As we prepare to celebrate Easter our Jewish brothers and sisters have just shared Passover. It is said that
the rabbis taught, "The miracle of the Red Sea was not about the parting of the waters. The miracle of the
Red Sea is that with a huge wall of churning water on each side of them, the first Jew walked through."
The implication is that God cannot or does not do it all alone. God may part the waters, but we have to walk
through them!
The stones all around us are shouting out; but will we join them? We live in a world with very real issues and
great injustice. Look around.
Millions cannot afford medical care.
The earth grows warmer and more vulnerable and
more polluted every day.
The gulf between rich and poor widens.
Guns are more prevalent in our schools.
The elderly are ignored and the young are
disillusioned.
We speak constantly of morality but don't want to
see what is immoral in ourselves.
We decry violence but practice it each in our own
way.
We talk about equality even as we ignore its
absence.
We speak of the need for diversity while we huddle
in our comfortable enclaves.
We accumulate for ourselves and forget the
neighbor at our door.
We practice religion and we forget the good news.
All around, the stones are shouting.
Some things cannot be kept quiet. The question for us is, are we shouting, or are we keeping silent? The prophet
Isaiah rejoiced that "The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the
weary with a word." Can we seek as much? Is there any word from the Lord? Have you heard it?
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