Gracious and loving God, we give you thanks that you have called us to follow your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. As we prepare to enter holy week, help us reflect on what it means to be called by you and celebrate the death and resurrection of your Son. Through Christ we pray together. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to begin this morning by sharing with you a story about Daniel Wolpert. When Daniel Wolpert turned 18, he joined a Buddhist monastery in Norway. As a Buddhist, Daniel spent hours, days, months, and even years meditating. A primary goal of his meditations was to let whatever thoughts enter his mind simply pass by. Unfortunately though, over a long period of time, one word kept returning to Daniel: “run.” Each time he heard this word, he would try to ignore it and continue his meditation, but eventually, he couldn’t take it any more. The word “run” was driving him crazy. It was destroying his meditations.

 

Unsure of what to do, Daniel asked his teacher for some guidance and advice. The teacher’s advice was simple: “Next time you hear the word ‘run,’ do what it says.”

 

Several more weeks went by, and then in the middle of the meditation, Daniel heard the word again: “run.” So, that is what he did. He opened the door, and he ran. He ran for as long, and as hard, and as far as he could without any particular sense of direction. After an hour of running, he could go no farther. He had ended up on the coast. He was bent over, gasping for breath, and he looked out over the water. Above the water, in a cloud, he saw the face of Jesus. 

 

At first he couldn’t really understand what was taking place. He knew who Jesus was, but at the same time, he didn’t know who Jesus was. He thought it was strange that he was seeing Jesus in the form of a cloud. To make matters even more complicated, Jesus said to Daniel, “Follow me.”

 

Unsure of what to do or what really happened, Daniel returned to the monastery. He found his teacher and told him that he had taken his advice. He told him he had started running when he heard the word “run,” and Daniel’s teacher asked, “What happened?”

 

Daniel said that Jesus had come to him in a cloud and told him to follow him. The teacher looked at Daniel. He paused for a moment. Then he said, “Well, follow him.”

 

The next day, Daniel left the monastery and headed into town. He had not been to town for five years. He had no idea what to expect. The first church he came to was a Catholic Church. He knocked on the doors of the sanctuary, and he told the priest his story. The priest listened to him and said, “Come live with me. I’ll show you what it means to follow Jesus.”

 

So, for the next several years, Daniel did just that. He stayed with the priest, learning what it means to follow Jesus.

 

But the story doesn’t end there. Daniel eventually wound up attending seminary in the United States and becoming an ordained Presbyterian minister. He followed a call to Minnesota, where he took a small, ordinary, Presbyterian Church. 

 

After three months of preaching, he realized the people weren’t really listening to his sermons. So, one Sunday, he walked up to the pulpit. He said, “Today, I want to know what questions you have? If you don’t have any questions, we’ll just sit in silence and meditate for the 20 minutes that I would usually preach.”

 

Then he sat down. After a long period of silence – ten or 15 minutes – somebody eventually stood up and asked a question. Daniel said, “That’s a good question,” then he sat back down.

 

This process continued for three months. Each Sunday during the time of the sermon, there would be silence interspersed with a few questions. Daniel encouraged the people to reflect during these times of silence what it really meant to follow Jesus.

 

In many ways, our text this morning, taken from the gospel of Mark, parallels Daniel’s experience with Jesus. This morning is the beginning of the most-sacred week of the Christian year. Today, along with millions of others from around the world, we celebrate Palm Sunday – Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. When we read the story quickly, everything seems to fall into place almost simplistically. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowd gathers. People wave their palm branches and shout, “Hosanna!”

 

But the story isn’t simple. A lot more happened that day that Mark doesn’t tell us. The reason Mark doesn’t share with us all of the details is because he assumes, as anyone from his time period would, that we would already understand and be aware of all of the surrounding events. On this particular Sunday, more than 2,000 years ago, two processions entered Jerusalem that day. It was the beginning of the week of Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish year. That first procession was the procession we already know about. From the east, Jesus road a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered along by his followers. Jesus was a peasant from the peasant village of Nazareth. His message was about the kingdom of God, and his followers came mostly from a peasant class. His disciples had followed him from Galilee to Jerusalem, a distance of about a hundred miles. It is a journey that is crucial to the gospel of Mark.

 

In Mark’s story of Jesus, the kingdom of God has always been pointing toward Jerusalem. For Mark, the question for Jesus’ disciples, once they came to Jerusalem was, “Would they follow?” 

 

For us today, we are asked the same question, “Will we follow Jesus? Will we follow Jesus into Jerusalem and understand what it’s all about?”

 

The second procession of the day came from the west, on the opposite side of the city. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of an Imperial Cavalry and Soldiers. 

 

Jesus’ procession proclaimed the kingdom of God. Pilate’s procession proclaimed the power of an empire. These two processions, in juxtaposition to one another, embody the central conflict of the week that led to the crucifixion of Jesus. Mark and his followers would have known it was the standard practice of the Roman governors of Judea to be in Jerusalem for the major Jewish festivals. Pontius Pilate was there, not to celebrate the Jewish faith, but rather to flex his muscles and maintain law and order. Pilate’s procession embodies the glory, and power, and violence of the empire that ruled the world. Pilate and his soldiers would have been dressed in full military regalia. Swords and spears glistened in the sun. Pure gold eagles were on top of helmets.

 

Jesus’ procession embodied the alternative vision, the kingdom of God. There is a stark contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of a Roman emperor. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was a planned event. Jesus deliberately chose to offer a counter-message to Pilate. At the same time, Jesus fulfills the Jewish Scripture in the words of the prophet Zechariah. According to Zechariah, a king would come to Jerusalem, humble and riding on a colt.

 

In Mark, our reading for today, the reference is somewhat vague. In other gospels, like the gospel of Matthew, the connection is explicit and labeled, right there for us to see. But even in Matthew, only the first verse of the prophet Zechariah is shared. 

 

In Jewish teaching, there is a word, remez. Remez means that you quote the first part of a verse, but what you really want people to remember is the second part of the verse. When we read the second part of the verse from the prophet Zechariah, we learn what kind of king the prophet envisioned.

 

 

This king, riding on a donkey, will banish war from the land. No more chariots. No more war-horses. No more bows. No more violence. Jesus commands peace to all nations. He will be a king of peace. 

 

The question, again, is will we follow Jesus into Jerusalem? 

 

I want to switch back, just for a moment, to Daniel’s call to follow Jesus. The first Easter Daniel experienced with his congregation was a bit of a disappointment to Daniel. He felt the people didn’t truly grasp the meaning of Easter. He would say, “Christ is risen!” In a monotone voice, with no real passion, the people would respond, “Christ is risen, indeed.”

 

For his second Easter at the church in Minnesota, Daniel was convinced he had to do something different. Daniel started hanging bones on the crosses in the sanctuary. Now, remember where the congregation is that Daniel serves. This is small-town Minnesota. It is a very easy-going congregation. People in Daniel’s congregation started talking to one another and saying to each other, “When are these bones going to come out of the sanctuary?” They were, understandably, as Daniel put it, “A little freaked out.” In response to their questions, Daniel kept saying, “Easter morning. They will come down on Easter morning.”

 

Early on Easter morning, before anyone else arrived, Daniel and a few others entered the sanctuary. He covered the bones on the cross with police tape. He had people put on costume makeup and lie down like they were dead. Then when the service started and Daniel started to say, “Christ is risen!” the individuals simulating dead people began to stand up. As Daniel looked around the room, he started to sense that people really understood what the message of the Easter story is all about. People had tears in their eyes and passion in their voice. They started to understand what it means to follow Jesus into Jerusalem and experience Easter Sunday in a new light.

 

Seeing the world with new eyes is a key understanding of following Jesus into Jerusalem. In the gospel reading for this morning, Jesus goes to Jericho right before he goes to Jerusalem. When he leaves Jericho, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting on the side of the road, heard Jesus and shouts to him, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

 

The people surrounding Bartimaeus could not believe that he was shouting at Jesus. They tried to hush him up and make him be quiet, but Jesus called to Bartimaeus and said, “What do you want me to do for you?”

 

Bartimaeus said, “My teacher, let me see again.”

 

Jesus said, “Go; your faith has made you well.”

 

Immediately following this passage, Jesus enters into Jerusalem. This is the message Jesus is speaking to us this morning. We are sitting at the crossroad of life. We are waiting for Jesus to walk by us and begin the path to Jerusalem. We’re calling out to Jesus, “Have mercy on us! We want to be able to see again. We want to be able to see with fresh eyes the kingdom of God.”

 

In the beginning of the gospel of Mark, the writer makes Jesus’ message absolutely clear. He says, “Repent and believe the good news.”

 

The words repent and believe the good news are the words we uttered on Ash Wednesday as we made the sign of the cross on our forehead. In the Hebrew Scripture, the word repent means to return – to return from exile. In the Greek, the word repent means to go beyond the mind you already have. The word believe has a little bit different connotation than the way we understand the word believe. Today, when we say we believe something, we acknowledge certain facts and ideals as being truthful. The Greeks would accept this definition, but they took the word believe a step farther. 

 

For Mark, for the early Christian communities, to say you believe in something means you are committed and trust something with your entire heart and entire soul. To repent and believe the good news, then, means you will embody the kingdom of God at this very moment and seek its fulfillment. To repent and believe the good news means you will journey with Jesus and return from exile down the streets of Jerusalem. To repent and believe means you will seek to do the will of God and follow God’s will no matter what the consequences.

 

The message of Palm Sunday is that we are called to bear the gospel in our bones. Pay attention to what takes place around you. Be willing to accept that life has pain, vulnerability, and heartbreaking beauty. That’s the invitation. That’s what it means to follow Jesus and be a living person of God. The invitation from God, this morning, is to be a living person, to let go, to make a commitment, to do something radical, and to respond to God. Live your life as if it is a work of art and trust that God lives in you. Trust the call given to you by God will come true. Trust in the love, and the grace, and the beauty of God given to each and every one of us here this morning and throughout the world.

 

Through Christ, we say together… “Amen.”

 

 

Truth! Let us seek you, see you, and have the courage and the heart to move in you. Hosanna to the Son of David! Amen.