"After the Parade"[1]
by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett for Palm Sunday
Preached at Pleasantville United Church of Christ, April 5, 2009
Mark 11:1-11

“Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.  T
hen those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,
“Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”
(Mark 1:8-9)

My husband Rob and I have very different ideas about what makes for a good movie.  We are not polarized by traditional gender-based stereotypes mind you.  It’s not that I like romances and he likes Rambo.  It’s more basic than that.  It’s that he likes to watch a movie once and I like to watch a movie – well, there’s no telling exactly how many times I like to watch a movie.  If it’s a good movie why not watch it again…and again…and again?  When it became economically obvious, Robert finally purchased all the known Jane Austin films ever made in the western world so I would stop renting them from our local Blockbuster.

I don’t know what it is but there is something compelling about watching a familiar story play out in front of our eyes.  If it were not true, why would television stations continue to run It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas?  It must still sell or they wouldn’t run it.  You can pretty much guarantee it ain’t sentimentality that keeps it on the air.  For somebody like me, watching all those people march into George Bailey’s living room with piles of money in their hands or collected in their hats just never gets old.  Though I do believe one of the reasons I keep watching is that I’m just waiting for the day when somebody figures out that Old Mr. Potter stole that deposit money and they’re gonna’ go right over there and take it out of his greedy little hands.

There are some stories we seem to want to watch over and over again – and of course, when the stories have happy endings it’s easy enough to understand why.  But then there are the ones that don’t.

It’s difficult to imagine what that first Palm Sunday experience must have been like – and yet, every year, we try to do it.  And it’s not enough for us to simply read the story -- Christians the world over are waving palm branches this very day and shouting “Hosanna!”  We want to be there.  It’s a story we know.  A great day for pageantry!  And the truth is, if it all ended right here on Palm Sunday, it might be easier to understand why we put ourselves through it over and over again.  

Imagine this: Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and he is greeted by a great parade – a vast procession of adoring followers all shouting out their love and praise.  People take off their coats and lay them down on the ground, ready to lay down their lives too in the service of the Lord, if asked.  And when they realize that “the One who comes in the name of the Lord” also comes in the name of peace and humility and service, well then, they all just beat their swords into plowshares and turn their lives over to Jesus.  What if it had all happened that way – and there wouldn’t be any need to tell the rest of the Story – of what happened on Thursday or Friday.

It’s hard to imagine what that first Palm Sunday experience must have been like.  But this true story may help:

It was April of 1865, the last days of the Civil War, and the Confederate capitol of Richmond had just fallen to General Grant.  The prize that had been sought in four bloody years of fighting had finally been won.  Let me read from historian, Jay Winik’s, account of the day:

A reading from April 1865: the Month that Saved America, by Jay Winik (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001). 118-119.

Ten days later, April 14, 1865, on Good Friday, Abraham Lincoln was fatally wounded, the first assassination of an American President.  Apart from there being something almost eerie about the parallels between the death of a president that freed the slaves and the One who frees us all from bondage, this story got me thinking about how much can change after the Parade.  How quickly the royal procession can become a death march.

No matter how many times the story is told, no matter how many years we hear it, no matter how much we may hope that the events of this week unfolded differently, the story remains the same.  With signs of spring making humble progress everywhere, today we begin our certain descent into darkness.  Because Palm Sunday marks Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but it is a parade route that is marked by the shadow of the cross.

            Read the gospel passage again.

After the parade, in Mark’s gospel, Jesus goes to the Temple, looks around at everything, and then slips away to the village of Bethany – the place where his good friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus lived.  Mark doesn’t tell us, but I tend to think that he went there to be with friends, to brace himself for what was coming.

We always talk about the fickleness of the crowd, how quickly they turned on Jesus.  That is how we are, heroes become goats and vice versa.  But I know that among the folk shouting “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday were plenty who would not be shouting “Crucify him!”  The blind beggar he healed on the way to the city who followed Jesus on the way.  Lazarus raised from the dead, and his sisters.  The woman at the well if she had been there, Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, the disciples who loved him, the persons he healed and fed, the parents of the children that he blessed.

Sure, there were fair-weather friends and fickle supporters who no doubt changed their vote on Good Friday from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify him!”  But I would guess there were many who on that Good Friday would weep.  People who looked to Jesus for salvation and had their hopes crushed; people whose only sin was that – driven by fear – they would remain silent and in the shadows as he was tortured, humiliated, and executed.

Palm Sunday is the first step on the final journey of Lent.  As we move into Holy Week we do so knowing that we must stare down the darkness of the world, and our own complicity in it.  We must stare down the darkness, not only because it is an inescapable aspect of ourselves, but because it is an absolutely pivotal part of the story of our faith.  If we have learned nothing else from our Savior, the events of Holy Week stand to remind us that we must acknowledge and attend to the darkness in ourselves. 

But what evil never learns is that violence can never silence the truth forever.  John Wilkes Booth thought he was really something when he pulled the trigger that ended Abraham Lincoln’s life.  He thought that Lincoln was silenced for good.

Sure.  That’s why none of us have ever heard the words:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”[2] 

The Romans and the powers that be thought that Jesus would never be heard from again.  That all that stuff about loving one’s enemies, turning the other cheek, servanthood, healing, abundant eternal life – that all of that was just the empty words of a dreamer.  Palm Sunday, they were sure, was just a fickle crowd of folk that would forget; folk that were too frightened to speak up.  Oh Jesus had his 15 minutes of fame, but soon all would be forgotten.

Come out on Thursday, if you want, and have a last supper with him.  Come out on Friday and hear the devil howl with glee.  That’s how it is on Friday.  And it is all very sad. 

Oh, but then comes this little thing we call EASTER…