Palm Sunday 2020 Palmarum
John 12:12-19
April 5, 2020
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
Growing up Palm Sunday was one of my favorite Sundays, and it still is. I love the songs, the idea of palm branches, and the joy that we have. Holy week is what main focus of the entire year. When I was in college during the end of my sophomore year, I had the opportunity to study in Northern Spain for a term. I was there in the spring, and Holy Week was simply amazing. Starting on Palm Sunday and then every day until Easter, there were processions, basically large Christian parades celebrating the week. In a sense they were reenacting the Biblical account of that week. Every day the parade was different. It started out on a happy note, and then gradually got darker as we neared Good Friday. I knew what was going to happen on Good Friday, yet it’s one of those things that you still almost expect a better ending every time you go through it.
But today, today is different. Yes, today is a day of joy as we sing “hosanna” along with people all over the world in celebration of Jesus riding into Jerusalem. But it’s also different in that this is happening in people’s homes more often than and around the churches. Our expectations of this week and our Easter celebration have been completely uprooted. It is strange, the but the way of the cross is accompanied by the unusual and unique as God Himself rides into Jerusalem.
The Gospel of John tells us that the crowd which had gathered to see Him, had heard how Jesus had brought Lazarus back from the dead. People were following Jesus around and you can bet they were wondering what sort of sign and miracle He might do next. Many people had believed in Him because He raised Lazarus from the dead. There was a lot of anticipation, and a lot of expectations about who Jesus was and who He would be.
There were many different ideas about the Messiah and who he would be, even from the disciples, but suffering and dying really wasn’t a popular one. Some thought he would be a political ruler, some a purely spiritual ruler, and some really didn’t think too much about a Messiah, or a Savior at all. But we see in the Gospel of John that Jesus riding into Jerusalem was an expectation. In fact, it was more than that. All the way back in the Old Testament, hundreds of years before Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, Zechariah prophesied to God’s people saying, “Fear not, O Daughter of Zion, behold your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt.” Most Gentile kings would ride into town on a horse. A horse is a powerful animal, used in war, it lets the rider sit high above everyone else. But a donkey really was only used as a pack animal, an animal of service to people. A servant Messiah was coming to town, a Messiah of many expectations. This is how King David would ride into his city, Jerusalem. And here we have Jesus doing the very same thing as that Old Testament king. What a sight that must have been that day, especially knowing what we know now.
We have expectations of Jesus too, don’t we, just like those who were there? We have read God’s message to us, just like those 2000 years ago. When Jesus comes, we expect to see miracles. We expect Him to forgive our sins when we repent. We expect Jesus to be with us. We expect Him to hear our prayers. We expect these things because God has already promised all of them to us. We didn’t just come up with them out of thin air. We know He is faithful and just and that He keeps His promises, even though we sometimes don’t keep ours to Him.
But Jesus doesn’t always do what we expect Him to. How often do we wish Jesus could do what we want Him to do in our lives. We see on TV, hear in school, and all over the place how people think Jesus should act. Some say, “God couldn’t have created the world in 6 days, so you must believe, if there is a God, he used millions of years in evolution.” Others say, “Jesus couldn’t have said some mean things in the Bible or talked about Hell because He is too nice for that.” Others say, “I can’t believe in a God when I look around the world and see famine, disease, and war.” And some expect that by being a Christian, by following God’s commands that our life is going to be easy because God will bless us with more stuff and more happiness. Too often, people out there, and yes, sometimes even us, try to remake God in our image, to make Him act the way we want Him to instead of how He has said He would. We get ourselves into trouble when we start putting expectations upon Jesus that He hasn’t put on Himself already.
Jesus didn’t do what was expected when He came into Jerusalem. Sure, He did signs and wonders that week in Jerusalem for the people, but the week didn’t end the way His disciples expected. They had been told what would happen, Jesus Himself had told them more than once that he must suffer and die. And yet the Gospel of John tells us, “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him.” They had forgotten what Jesus kept telling them was going to happen later that week on a cross. They were so caught up in the parade of palm branches and singing, in the emotions of the day. Too much going on in their lives. Too much hustle and bustle, and they didn’t like the idea of thinking that their teacher would have to die, that one of them would betray Him, that they might be faced with death themselves by being connected.
The Pharisees, who were already looking for ways to kill Him, even noticed this fickle and temporary excitement and said, “Look, the world has gone after Him.” How ironic that less than a week later, those same crowds, those same disciples save one, would completely abandon Him. Alone. Tired. Beaten. Where you should have been, not Him.
So I ask you this question – do you want the real Jesus? We wave palm branches today in joy of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem just like the people back then and as people have when celebrating this day for the last 2000 years. How universally we are tempted to have our own glory, to wave the biggest palm branch, to have the biggest and most meaningful church service. But Jesus calls us to cross-like glory. We can look at the people then and see how fickle and temporary their faith is during Holy Week, how fleeting their expectations, wherein they closed their hearts and minds to the true cost of the Gospel – death. Jesus gives us the unexpected. He gives us His suffering. He gives us His death on a cross. He gives us His resurrected life.
That’s what you can expect from Jesus this week, and indeed, every day as you wait expectantly for the foundation of our Christian hope in the resurrection on Easter.