"After the Parade"

A sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett for Palm Sunday, Year A

Preached at Pleasantville United Church of Christ, April 17, 2011

Matthew 21:1-11

“A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’” (Matthew 21:8-10)

Our story today begins with a procession.  All of the gospels are united on this point.  Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey while people spread garments and branches on the ground and sing, “Hosanna!” (which means) “Save us!”  “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

The hymns for the day recall the great celebration: “Hosanna, Loud Hosanna”  "All Glory, Laud, and Honor.”  We process, we sing, we wave palm branches and we remember his day of triumphant entry.

But this is a day full of contradiction.

Now the crowd cries “Hosanna!  Save us!” But later in the week they will jeer, “He cannot even save himself – how can he save us?!”

Jesus rides in on a donkey – not a stallion or a war horse.  And yet the crowd ignores his humble entry and treats him like a military hero, laying branches on the ground and spreading their garments everywhere.

They think he’s come to overthrow the Roman occupation.  They think he’s come to be their King.  And he has.  Only they forget: this is the King who was born in a homeless shelter.  This is the Son of God, whose kingdom is not of this world.[1]

All Glory, Laud, and Honor
to you, O Christ we sing

On Palm Sunday we sing hymns full of grand words.  The kind of words that make you think of kingly processions and rich flowing garments; of streets lined with people, cheering and waving -- a kind of royal ticker-tape parade.

We sing words that make you think of crowds of people so enthusiastic, so hopeful, so moved by this great and glorious procession that they take off their coats and lay them in the street so that the one who is to come can ride in on the gentle cushion of their adoration.

But this is a day full of contradiction. 

Because the crowd that cries “Hosanna” will soon shout, “Crucify him!”  And the journey from here to there; the story that unfolds after the parade, is a journey that most of us don’t want to make. 

This past Thursday night, David Lightkep and I gathered with our class of Confirmands to help them understand the story that will unfold in the week ahead.

It’s a hard story to teach young people.  You want to teach them about noble ideals.  You want to teach them about people doing right by one another. You want to teach them about goodness and kindness, and compassion, and hope.

But the story that unfolds after the parade is a hard story.  It’s a story marked by betrayal and sorrow and death, and that’s not a story we like to tell our children.  And yet, you cannot be a Christian and not know it.  Because the Day of Resurrection makes no sense if there is no tomb. 

We want so badly to have the story come out alright.  It’s like going to see the movie Titanic or Romeo and Juliet and hoping against hope that things will go right this time – that they’ll see the iceberg before it’s too late; “that Juliet will wake up from her drugged sleep before her young lover kills himself.”[2]  We know what’s going to happen, and yet we wish we could just stay along the roadside, waving our palm branches, promising to be faithful, hoping that “The cross won’t have to happen; and all history will be redeemed without agony.”[3]

It’s a hard story to teach young people.  We begin the week along the roadside, and we end it at the foot of the cross.  We begin the week being part of the joyful crowd and we end the week being part of the murderous one. 

It’s an emotional rollercoaster.  But for Christians, that’s what it’s meant to be.

All Glory, Laud, and Honor
to you, O Christ we sing

This is a day that begins with a procession to welcome a King.  But I suspect it wasn’t the kind of procession anybody really expected.  It couldn’t have been a gathering of society's finest.  It was probably made up of people whose lives had been touched and changed by Jesus. 

Maybe Lazarus was among them, the one that Jesus had brought back from the dead.  Maybe that man blind from birth was there – still in awe at what he was now able to see. Maybe the woman whom Jesus had met at the well came to share her testimony of how Jesus saw her for who she was – with all her flaws and all her mistakes – and how he loved her anyway.  Certainly there must have been a good number of dust-covered children running under foot -- because Jesus had held them in his arms and blessed them and told them that they were beloved.  Maybe Jairus was there, forever grateful that Jesus had healed his daughter.  Maybe Nicodemus and Zaccheus were there, full of doubt, but still believing.  Maybe all the lepers that Jesus had ever cleansed, and all the prostitutes and tax collectors that Jesus had ever dined with – maybe they were all there.  Maybe the drug addicts and the people who had been possessed by demons were there. Maybe the rich people and the poor people were all together in one place. 

Maybe it was the Church, after all – full of people from vastly different backgrounds – all drawn together for one reason: that their lives had been touched and changed by the living God and that news was too good to keep to themselves.

We know what happens after the parade.  We know how, after the parade, the crowd began to turn on Jesus -- even some of his closest friends betrayed him.  We know how on Thursday, Jesus met with his disciples in the Upper Room, and how he gave to them a new commandment: that they “love one another.” We know that on Friday, the darkness was very great indeed, and the Son of God was crucified for the transgressions of the world.  The Day of Resurrection makes no sense if there is no tomb.

We know what unfolds after the parade.

But then there is also this: after the parade, the gospel of Matthew continues:

When [Jesus] entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?”…Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.   …[and] The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.

In Matthew’s version of the story, after the parade Jesus went into the Temple and without missing a beat he chased out the money changers and those who sold doves for the purpose of religious sacrifice. He chased them out, and when they were gone, the blind and the lame -- those who had been forced to remain outside – came in.  And when they did, he cured them.[4]

This is a day full of contradictions: it begins with a celebration, but ends in the shadow of the cross.  It begins with a parade, but ends with a march to the tomb.  It’s a hard story to teach young people.

But then there is also this: after the parade, the ministry of Jesus Christ continued in all the ways that it had begun – by making room in God’s holy house for those who had been forced to remain outside.

It’s a hard story to teach.  But it’s definitely a story worth hearing.  Amen.