Luke 19:28-40
What
are we to make of Palm Sunday? It’s a
strange day – a day of rejoicing – a moment near the end of Christ’s ministry
when we get to celebrate all that he did and all of the possibilities for a
changed world. But we know what happens
next. We know that all the bright
futures seem to fade away. In a matter
of days Jesus will be arrested, beaten, condemned, and executed, and all the dreams
of the people will shatter.
It
makes today seem a little … off … a little fragile. Like somehow we shouldn’t be
celebrating. Like joy has no place
here. Like any moment, the bubble will
burst and darkness and despair will take the place of light-hearted joy. And yet, every time I hear this part of
Jesus’ story, I feel the hope of the people who gathered to cheer on this
unlikely king – this man who they thought was the messiah come to overthrow the
Romans, and I feel hope rising in me too … a fragile hope in the shadow of the
cross, but enough to make me want to celebrate this messiah – this king with
them.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he
did so as a king, but his royalty was not pomp and power but on a donkey in humble
obedience. In obedience he set his face
to Jerusalem, knowing that violence awaited him at journey’s end. In obedience he traveled along the way, eating
and drinking with sinners, and remaining faithful to God’s desire to gather the
rejected and the lost. Then he entered
the city for one last try at helping the people understand.[1]
It was a moment filled with fragile possibility. The best hope of the people was riding on
that borrowed donkey. Oh, what might
have been! Everything was just right –
if only Jesus had seized the moment; if only the people of Jerusalem had
responded as they should have; if only God had fulfilled the dreams of those
who followed Jesus.
Life is filled with moments of what might have been –
moments when everything seems right, but then it just doesn’t work out as we
had hoped. It can be so hard to go on
believing in God when life doesn’t give us what matters so dearly to us, but
there is always a danger when we attempt to chart the course for what God will
do. God was about to do something
powerful and wonderful – but that day the disciples were not looking for a
different kind of king. Their
imaginations anticipated a far more limited kind of kingdom, and their
disappointment led to anger and death.
It is so easy to project false images of the Lord we
worship, to make for ourselves a king whom we can worship rather than to
worship the Christ as our king. We construct
cults to the god who is always on our side and looks after our interests rather
than those of our adversaries and enemies.
We desire a God who promises health and prosperity, and so we join the
train of those whose worship is false because they do not know that the kingdom
of God belongs to a different kind of king.[2]
But God has a different plan – a fragile hope of her own. God is hoping that the people of this world
will turn away from the kings of their own vision – the kings of power and wealth,
and turn toward the humble King of Love who rode into Jerusalem to the cheers
of widows and orphans, beggars and outcasts, the sick and the searching. Every day, God calls to us … invites us …
pleads with us to join this other kingdom.
And, every day, we choose: follow
in the footsteps of the Obedient One or chase after the dreams of the crowd.
Each day is a fragile day for us. If we choose Christ – choose the way of love
- then our lives, as we have known them, may well be forfeit for one more day. If we choose the crowd, then the world will
remain as it is, and there will be no change in the suffering and the despair
that haunts us all … for one more day.
Let us choose … this day … to follow Christ. Let us welcome … this day … our strange King. Let us enter the even stranger kingdom he brings. And, let us rejoice even though we know what is coming. Let us celebrate … for this one day at least … the hope that love can bring.
[1] adapted
from Thomas Long’s “Season’s Greeting” in The
Christian Century, March 21-28, 2001 p. 13.
[2] Culpepper,
R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The
New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Volume IX
(Abingdon Press, Nashville) 1995.
370-71.
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