Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · April 5, 2009

Palm Sunday

Prayer of the Day

Gracious and loving God, this morning help us join in the crowds and shout, “Hosanna.” Remind us that we are called to lift our voices in praise and supplication. We give thanks for your Son’s triumphal entry. Through Christ, we pray together.  Amen.

Scripture

Matthew 21:1-11

When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

“Tell the daughter of Zion,

Look, your king is coming to you,

   Humble, and mounted on a donkey,

      and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 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!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Message

Save Us Now

Jacob Thorne

I want to begin this morning with a confession. There was a period in my life when all I wanted to be was a cowboy. From my freshman year of high school until my senior year of college, I spent a lot of time riding horses, training horses, and attending rodeos. I even had the opportunity, one summer, to work on a 101,000-acre ranch in the middle of Wyoming where there was nothing else. 

When I worked on this ranch, I was with these real cowboys, who still did things the old-fashioned way. They would carry six-shooters on their hip. You were expected to begin the day before sunrise. You would have steak waiting for you for breakfast. Then you would pack your lunch and your rain slicker. You would tie it to the back of your saddle. Then you would go out and spend the entire day herding cattle and branding calves. Then you would come back home again at night and have steak, once again. It really is possible to get tired of eating steak three times a day for a summer.

Anyway, these cowboys were tough. I was in way over my head. For example, one of these cowboys had been there all of his life. One day he was bitten by a rattlesnake. Now, I would think that if you were bitten by a rattlesnake, that would be grounds to go home early. But instead, he took a sip of water, and he sat down. He said, “Well, there’s a 50-50 chance. Let’s get back to work.”

Most of the stories they told weren’t true to begin with. But there was something that everyone agreed on. That was the fact that the Cheyenne Rodeo was the daddy of them all. It was the biggest rodeo of the year. Now, it just so happened that I had been to the Cheyenne Rodeo a few times, so I was a little bit a part of the conversation. I knew that when you go to the Cheyenne Rodeo, for miles on end all you see are cowboys and cowgirls, and horses, and these huge, huge trucks and trailers. 

The best part of the rodeo, in my opinion, was the trick riders in between the events. There was a family of trick riders. They would be on their horses, some on one end of the track, and some on the other end. At the Cheyenne Rodeo you sit in the grandstand, and there is a track that goes all the way around the arena. They would ride on their horses as fast as they could. They would jump from side to side. They would ride backwards. They would stand up and do all sorts of other weird events. 

Then the grand finale was when the father of the family would take two horses and stand on each horse – one foot on each horse. The horses would have separate bridles. He would hold them in each hand. He would then get them to go as fast as he could around the track while he stood on both horses’ backs. I saw him do this year after year after year. He never fell off. It was fun to watch.

So, one time, I decided to do it at my parents’ farm. It doesn’t work for me.

I decided to share this story with you this morning, because for centuries, Christians have wondered why, on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, which we celebrate today on Palm Sunday, Jesus is depicted, in the gospel of Matthew, as riding both a colt and a donkey at the same time. 

Matthew says, “The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.”

Now, physically, this is hard to comprehend, I think. But it is important to remember that the gospel of Matthew was written 60-to-75 years after the death of Jesus. When Matthew tells the story of Jesus riding on a colt and a donkey, Matthew and the community he lived in already recognized that Jesus was truly the Son of God. The early Christian community had come to understand that Jesus had fulfilled the prophesies of ancient Judaism. Matthew draws on the ancient Jewish tradition, and particularly the prophet Zechariah, to emphasize the meaning of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. In Zechariah 9:9, it says, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

When Matthew repeats these words and imagery, the Jewish people would have immediately recognized the text taken from the prophet Zechariah. Zechariah lived during a very tumultuous time in the history of Israel. During his time, a new ruler was desperately needed. With this fulfillment, a new king, Jesus, has arrived. Zechariah says that the new king will ride on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Now, when Zechariah said this, he knew that in the ancient Jewish tradition, when you wanted to emphasize a point, you would say the same thing two different ways. So, Zechariah refers to the donkey in two different ways. What Matthew didn’t quite grasp was that it was still just one donkey, not two. Anyway; Matthew takes a literal version of Zechariah’s story. 

But the symbolism of the donkey really is important in understanding what Palm Sunday is all about. For centuries, since Zechariah and before, the Jewish people had been calling for a new monarch, a new ruler. They were looking for someone to lead them who would be strong. A leader who would help them regain all of the rights they had lost under the Roman government. A leader who would ride into town and overthrow the rulers of the time. Jerusalem was the capital of the Roman government. Jerusalem was the power-house of the time. All the key decisions, key laws, key rulings were made in Jerusalem. So, when a new king rides into town, the Jews begin to believe that their prophesies had been fulfilled. 

What Matthew really does, beginning with Jesus riding on two animals, is provoke even more questions. Did the Jewish people really believe their prophesies had been fulfilled? 

At first, I think the answer to this question would be, “Yes.” The Jewish people did believe a new king had arrived. Their prayers had been answered. As Jesus rides down the street, people wave their palms and shout, “Hosanna! Hosanna!” The word Hosanna literally means, “Save us now.” The Jewish people, tired of living under a government that systematically abused and mistreated them, shouted to Jesus, “Save us now! Save us now!”

But after only a few shouts and waves of the palms, Matthew tells us that the Jewish people began to talk with one another. We read that when Jesus entered Jerusalem the entire city was in turmoil. They started asking one another, “Who is this?”

I can imagine the Jewish people turning to each other and asking, “What kind of king rides into town on a donkey?” “Where is the royal procession?” “Where is all the glitz, and the glamour, and the power?” “Is this really a king?”

Perhaps this is the question that Matthew is asking us to consider this morning. “Who is this?” “Who is this Jesus that we claim to follow?” “Who is this Jesus who rode into Jerusalem knowing that he was leading a funeral procession?” “Who is this Jesus, and what does this mean to us today?” “Are we still shouting ‘Hosanna’?” “Are we still shouting ‘Save us now’?” “Are we willing to walk with Jesus down the streets of Jerusalem?”

Gandhi, the great Hindu leader, seemed to be attracted to the teachings of Jesus. He was known to commonly refer to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, taken from the gospel of Matthew. The missionary E. Stanley Jones was with Gandhi one day, and he asked him a question. “Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is it you appear so adamantly to reject being his follower?”

Gandhi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It is just that so many of your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Maybe Gandhi said this, because we have yet to fully answer the question, “Who is this?”

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, he was on the annual Passover pilgrimage. All along the way, Jesus told of a new life, a new kingdom. He told his confused disciples, not once but three times, that he was headed for Jerusalem where he would surely be arrested, condemned, and crucified.

Now, the disciples were committed to Jesus. They had given up everything they owned to follow him. But they still didn’t understand exactly what Jesus was saying. They shouted, along with the others, “Save us now!” But at the same time, they failed to live out the teachings that Jesus had preached. When it came down to the end, Jesus was betrayed by his own disciples and abandoned on the cross.

Have you ever responded the same way as the disciples? Have you ever been committed to something, studying it to its core, but still missing the most fundamental points and teachings?

Fred Craddock is one of the best Disciple of Christ’s ministers to have ever preached. He is now retired and serves as the pastor emeritus at Cherry Log Christian Church in Georgia. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Fred earned his graduate degree. He focused on biblical studies and the art of preaching. This morning, I want to share with you a story about his experience as a grad student. Listen to what he says.

I was in graduate school at Vanderbilt. I had left the family and children in the little parish I served and moved into a little room to prepare for those terrible comprehensive exams.  It’s make-it-or-break-it time. They can kill you. I would go every night about 11:30 or 12:00 to a little all-night diner. No tables; just little stools. I would have a grilled cheese and a cup of coffee to take a break from my studies. It was the same every night. The fellow behind the counter at the grill knew when I walked in to prepare a grilled cheese and a cup of coffee. He would give me a refill. Sometimes he would come again and give me another refill. I joined the men of the night sitting there hovering over coffee, still thinking about my own plausible questions about the New Testament oral exam. 

Then I noticed a man who was there when I went in but had not yet been waited on. I had been waited on, had a refill, and so had others. Finally, the man behind the counter went to the man at the end of the counter and said, “What do you want?” 

He was an old, gray-haired, African-American man. Whatever the man said, the fellow went to the grill, scooped up a little, dark, blackened patty off the back of the grill and put it on a piece of bread without condiments, without napkin. The cook handed it to the man, who gave him some money, and then went out the side door by the garbage can and out on the street. He sat on the curb with the 18-wheelers of the night, with the salt and pepper of the street to season his sandwich.

I didn’t say anything. I did not reprimand, protest, or witness to the cook. I did not go out and sit beside the man on the curb on the edge. I didn’t do anything. I was thinking about the questions coming up on the New Testament. I left the little place, went up the hill back to my room to resume my studies, and off in the distance I heard the rooster crow.

After the sermon when he told this story, Craddock was visiting some people. A young man, an attorney, came up to him and thanked him for the sermon, but asked, “What was that about a rooster crowing at Vanderbilt?”

Well, here’s what it is about. The rooster crows when followers of Jesus deny the way of the cross. The rooster crows when followers of Jesus take the easy path and do not take up their cross.

At the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples, Jesus said that soon he would be betrayed and crucified. The disciples didn’t understand what he meant. Jesus said that nobody would follow him through the streets of Jerusalem. When Peter finally understood, he said, “I’ll lay down my life for you.”

Jesus responded to Peter by saying, “Listen. The rooster won’t crow until you have betrayed me three times.”

Jesus, of course, was correct. After he was arrested, Peter was sitting in the courtyard. He was next to a fire, trying to stay warm. Three times a girl came up to Peter and asked him if he wasn’t the one who was with Jesus? Each time, Peter said he didn’t know what she was talking about. And then, when the sun came over the horizon, the rooster crowed, and the tears began to run down Peter’s face, for Peter knew, once again, he had betrayed Jesus. Before he had betrayed him, Jesus told Peter, “If you want to become my follower, you have to deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. The ones who are out to save their own life will lose it. Those who lose their life, for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

If we pick up the cross of Jesus, then we proclaim that embracing the death of Jesus is really, at the same time, embracing his life. As the early Christian community struggled to make sense of Jesus’ death, they began to realize that speaking of the death of Jesus would connect them with his life and, in turn, would be formative in helping them decide how they wanted to live their lives. To be a follower of Jesus, in the ancient world, and to bear the cross was to be, as the Scripture says, “A fool for Christ’s sake” – embracing weakness, not strength, shame rather than honor, admit welcoming vilification, persecution, and slander, admit, as the Bible tells us, becoming the refuge of the world, the off-scouring of all things.

Jesus’ life was not just a prelude to his death, but the way of life. For generations, following the death of Jesus, the movement was simply known as, “The Way.” It is a new way to live in response to God.

If we are honest with ourselves, we can admit that at one time or another, we have all acted like Peter. Sometimes it is easier to say nothing, or to take the easy path in order to avoid consequences. But we have all heard that bracing, crowing sound of denial and betrayal. 

This Sunday we have the opportunity to decide, once again, if we will walk with Jesus down the city streets or Jerusalem. We have the opportunity to decide if we are going to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. The Jesus of Palm Sunday is the Jesus we need to discover, the Jesus who is triumphant precisely because he does ride through town on a donkey.

Let us pick up our cross and pick up our palms, and let us follow Jesus and say together three times, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!” [Editor’s note: The congregation took their palms, waved them and repeated the “Hosannas” with Jacob.]

We proclaim this morning, “Jesus, save us now!” 

We remember the words of Paul, who took up the life of Jesus and made it his own saying, “We are carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our body.”

Let us now, today, and everyday, live what Jesus died for.

Through Christ, we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

It is not you who shape God; it is God that shapes you. If then you are the work of God, await the hand of the Artist who does all things in due season. Offer the Potter your heart, soft and tractable, and keep the form in which the Artist has fashioned you. Let your clay be moist, lest you grow hard and lose the imprint of the Potter’s fingers. Amen.

- Irenaeus