Palm Sunday A 2008 Mt 26:36-27:66

We all know about parades. We have parades in the Northern Neck: the Kilmarnock Fireman’s parade, the 4th of July, we’ve all watched the big New York parades: Thanks-giving Day and Saint Patrick’s Day, and of course the Rose Bowl parade for the Tournament of the Roses in California. We have parades in church every Sunday, two of them: the processional and the recessional.

And on the very first Palm Sunday (although it wasn’t called that then) there was a parade. What a splendid oc-casion it must have been. Jesus ring into the city of Jerusa-lem while the people spread palm branches on the street ahead of him and behind him. The crowd -- Ah, the crowd, let’s remember them for later -- the crowd were shouting ho-sannas: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

But others in Jerusalem that day asked, “Who is this?” Who indeed is this Jesus? Who, indeed. Jesus was four things that we remember: He was the man who had it all. And he was the one who gave it all up. He changed it all. And he gave it all up -- for us.

He had it all: he was the Messiah, the Holy One, the Son of the living God, the miracle worker, God himself Incarnate, all powerful, eternal, everlasting. And he gave it all up, allowing himself to be captive, beaten, tortured, killed on the Cross -- all for us.

He had it all. It is in the nature of most human beings that when they have it all to want to keep most of it. He had been offered worldly things galore. We remember that right after his baptism he was tempted in the desert. Satan offered him all the kingdoms of the world, all the earthly power and glory that any human could ever want. And Jesus turned it down. And so the temptation in the desert and the crucifixion from a bracket around Jesus’ earthly ministry, just as his birth and his Resurrection bracket his earthly human life.

Still, Jesus had it all. We know him as King of kings, Lord of lords, Wonderful Counselor, the Prince of Peace, in the glorious words of First Isaiah and the soaring music of Handel’s Messiah.

And yet, he gave it all up. He gave it all up for us. That’s the good news, the core of the gospel, the thing which we carry foremost in our hearts and minds and souls as we go through Holy Week with all of its horror and power. Jesus could have had all the worldly power and glory avail-able, if he had wanted it. But he didn’t, and in fact gave the only thing he had, his own life for us, in his suffering and death on the rough and splintery and hard Cross of Calvary.

In this self sacrifice, this ultimate (but not final) self giving on the Cross, Jesus changed it all. The Cross and the Crucifixion remind us of how Jesus Christ changed it all -- for us. Changed our relationship with God and with each other.

There is a classic story about a social worker in one of the large parishes of the Church. A good Christian, she went one day into the home of a family who didn’t care a bit about their surroundings. They didn’t keep themselves clean and were indifferent to the shabbiness of their lives and the minimal effort necessary to change it.

So one Spring day she brought the most beautiful potted plant in full bloom she could find. She brought this lovely plant into that dirty house and without saying a word set it on a table in the center of this dirty house. Gradually, as the family began to take more and more notice of the beauty of the plant, they decided that it deserved somewhat better surroundings. They began making improvements, first cleaning up the room where the plant was, then the house and themselves, and finally putting their lives to useful purpose.

Something like that has happened to us and to generations of people as a result of Calvary’s hard Cross. We don’t understand just exactly how it happened. We don’t understand what there is about the crucifixion and death of our Lord that redeems humankind. Yet we know it happened and is still happening.

Our Lord offers it all, he offers himself still. Our Lord lives and seeks to make himself real in our lives. He is near us in our waking and in our sleeping, in our doing and in our not doing, in good times and bad. And it is that good news to which Palm Sunday and every Sunday and every day of our lives points us, toward the God who loves us.

AMEN



Drawn from InterNet and subscription sources in part