Palm Sunday
Luke 22, 23
Time like an ever rolling stream.....The old hymn
Time and the world are ever in flight...Yeats
For time lost may naught recovered be...Chaucer
Lost time is never found again...B. Franklin
Did you set your clocks ahead this morning? If you're here at the first service I can pretty much assume you remembered--second service might not be so obvious. If you remembered, you lost an hour. Ever consider where that hour goes. An hour, just gone. No record of it. Most people don't even notice unless you're on a work shift that's 11-7 and you only have to work 7 hours instead of 8.
This is a week in the church like that. In the old days it was possible to jump right from a very celebrative Palm Sunday to a very celebrative Easter Sunday and just loose the whole week of the Passion, just like that daylight savings hour the whole tragic narrative of Jesus last days just dropped ritght out of the picture. But now we wrap that whole passion story into this Palm Sunday just in case you don't make it to church on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. And this is not an all together bad thing because it becomes starkly clear that massive contrast, the earthchange that takes place in the hearts and minds of all those involved, the disciples, Judas, the government the religious officials and of course the crowds.
We may prefer to skip over the most painful parts of the Jesus story. It disturbs our illusion that the world is basically fine and happy, and that everything is going to be okay. You and I love that illusion; we cling to the mantra that everything is going to be just fine. Unfortunately, this is not always true. Our lives are full of plotlines that resist happy endings or tidy resolutions. The cultural expectation that we keep up appearances and declare everything to be a-okay only serves to deepen our pain and further isolate us from one another.
We are well aware that there is evil and sin in the world, but we tend to think of it as "out there" somewhere. It is not us, certainly, nor is it anybody we know. However, the utter rejection and crucifixion of Jesus -who was the most loving person of all--explodes the view that the world is basically a benevolent place. It exposes the darkness and sin in the world--and in us.
Many people have been deeply moved by the movie "The Passion" and I would never diminish that but I think one of the draw backs of the movie is that it is so brutal that we find it easy to put the responsibility out there, back then, with those people. It was the Romans, or the Jews, or the devil who turned against Jesus. How much more personally might we understand the betrayal of Jesus if the officials wore business suits and the crowd registered their feelings in opinion polls?
Paul Tillich argued that the basic human condition is estrangement. We are estranged, that is separated from our true and best selves. We are separated from God's best intentions for us. The inevitable result is personal guilt and universal tragedy. The whole sad story of Jesus last days -the way the crowds turned on him after Palm Sunday, the way he was abandoned by his best friends the condemnation by the authorities, and, finally the killing of Jesus--is not a story about crooks and evil doers. Instead, it is a story about the failure of people like us, people who are trying their best.
The disciples who deserted Christ at the end were not scoundrels and cowards. Peter, James and John were devoted to Jesus. Rome was a great and noble empire that represented the highest advance in civilization, and Judaism was an honorable religion, based on moral virtue, faith and integrity. The story of the rejection and condemnation of Jesus is not a story about bad people; instead it is a story about people who are like us, people of mixed motives and intentions. People who have a hard time knowing what the right way is. People who are easily swayed by power, money and prestige. That is why the crucifixion of Jesus confronts us with the inescapable truth that something is terribly wrong. The world is full of sin and in need of redemption. You and I too are full of sin and in need of redemption. Our confession through this Lenten season has been very poignant.
For me, the whole holy week experience is summed up in the immortal Words of the Lenten hymn, "Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? Alas my treason, Jesus has undone thee, Twas I Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee, I crucified thee."
And yet it is not a story of guilt and shame it is a story of love. God's love made personal and real in Jesus Christ. The point of this holy week, the reason we can't just drop this week like we drop the hour of daylight's saving time is that we must understand Our hope rests not in ourselves, our own goodness and power but solely and completely in the grace and goodness of God.
Amen.