Palm/Passion Sunday
Luke 19:28-40; Luke 22:1-23:56; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11
I get three newspapers every morning. I also listen to Public Radio and News radio stations. I have XM radio in my car which allows me to listen to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News. My E-mail receives headline alerts from the Washington Post, London Times, Sojourner Magazine and BBC Africa along with legislative alerts from our Lutheran Advocacy network, the Committee for Middle East Peace, the Lutheran Office of Governmental Affairs and weekly updates from both the Democratic and Republican central committees. Oh yes, our house also receives Time, Newsweek, US News, and The Economist magazines, plus a number of theological journals, Foreign Affairs Quarterly and Sports Illustrated. And this is not a complete list of all the publications that enter our house each week but they do represent my cutting edge sources for what I know about the world I live in. It also means that every day and at the end of every week there is an abundance of paper that goes to recycling all containing stories and news that is now old and out dated. But not everything goes to recycling.
Each week we also send off at least one package to our son in Africa. And among the items we regularly send him are a couple of the magazines that have come into the house. Tim indicates that he prefers some publications more than others. He likes getting the news magazines to keep abreast of popular culture and every other week we send him a copy of Sports Illustrated. He says he likes getting the magazines but because it takes two to three weeks for the mail to reach him he always feels a little like a prophet or time traveler. He said reading the Sport Illustrated pre-Super Bowl issue two weeks after the Super Bowl was over was tough. I read the news stories and analysis with a sense of anticipation. Will the negotiations between nations bring about the release of prisoners, a trade accord, a solution to a tense international encounter. Tim reads the same stories often already knowing what the future will bring
To know in advance what will work and what will fail. Who will be faithful and who will betray. Who will live and who will die. You view things differently when you already know what the final score will be. We have all heard the story of the first Palm Sunday and the events of the first Holy Week before. We know what is going to happen. But we sometimes miss the fact that Jesus also seemed to know far more than any local paper or news report could have known. It is easy to miss this fact because we hear the story as old news, events too familiar and predictable. But imagine if you were living the events of that first Palm Sunday and the ensuing first Holy Week for the first time.
Jesus makes a lot of predictions in our lessons for today and how we hear them and what we do with them says more about us than him. At first, I know I would have tried to dismiss what was happening as amazing coincidence. Jesus sends two disciples into the village where he tells them they will find a colt tied and he tells them how to respond to the question the stranger is going to ask them. When events occur as predicted, my initial response is to suggest that maybe Jesus had seen the colt when he passed that way before and certainly the question asked, "Why are you untying the colt?" would have not been all that unexpected. So it is a coincidence that the actual events match his words.
But then we get into the passion narrative. Again Jesus sends the disciples on an errand, this time to find a place to celebrate the Passover meal. Again he tells them who to watch for, a man with a jar of water, and what to say, "Where is the guest room?" And we are told the disciples went and found it as he had told them and they prepared the Passover. Two really good coincidences allowed Jesus to predict details of his entry into Jerusalem and his celebrating of the Passover. Two really good coincidences or something more. Because then comes the Passover meal, the last supper Jesus says he will celebrate with his disciples. We who know how the events will transpire, how the story will end; we now know that in the course of the meal Jesus predicted his own death; foretold that one of the disciples would betray him; identified not only that Peter would deny him but that he would do so three times that night before the morning crow of the rooster.
The predicted series of events begins to overwhelm even those of us living in the future. It is not enough to describe these events as an amazing collection of mere coincidences or the result of some very lucky guess work. We come to realize that there is a difference between those who are simply carried along by the force of circumstances and a series of events and the one who came to earth to change the course of human history. Luke's gospel provides for us ironic details to contrast Jesus' cosmic vision with bitter human acts. He describes how this Jesus, who clearly lives in the future of each moment, was mocked by those who blind folded him and demanded he "prophecy" who it was that struck him. We quickly realize that Jesus could prophecy far more about those who struck him then to simply name them. As Jesus is brought before the governor Pontius Pilate, then King Herod, and then back to the court of Pilate, we almost expect to hear the text telling us that this occurred and that occurred to fulfill what Jesus had predicted. The miracle worker, the healer and the story teller, the teacher of truth and righteousness becomes more and more the one who lives out his own prophecy. "The Son of Man must suffer and die and on the third day rise again." When Pilate asks the crowd what he should do with Jesus after the crowd has demanded the freeing of Barabbas we all know what comes next. The words crucify are not foreign to our vocabulary, especially not in this situation. Jesus is doomed. His own words have predicted it. Humanity's sin requires it. And yet even as he heads for the cross there is a moment of vision when he turns to the "daughters of Jerusalem" and foretells what? The destruction of Jerusalem as it would occur in less than 40 years or the end of time for all humanity? The story of the suffering and death of Jesus is a story that does not read neatly as old news. There is an immediacy about the events, yet this hovering sense of the unexpected. Is it just that Jesus seems to know what is coming next or is he controlling what comes next.
It feels like some one or something is in control. Our modern world does the best it can to try and control the future. Certainly we regularly expect a certain amount of visioning from those who lead us. We quickly loss confidence in companies that fail to have a forward looking business plan; we hold our military and political leaders responsible for failing to anticipate the worst case scenarios in order to avoid disasters; the basis of much litigation is found in our belief that any reasonable person knows they need expect the unexpected. We have come to understand that the future is what shapes the meaning of events present and past. History is constantly being rewritten by what we know now and what we will know some day. It is in looking to the future that we find our hope. The belief not only in the inevitable but also the miraculous moments that fulfill the vision beyond words. Sometimes all we can do is trust in the vision to carry us beyond this moment.
If I were to tell you, you are going to die, the truth is, that is not a prophecy but a fact. Everyone dies sooner or later. And death is the end of vision and hope unless the meaning, memory, and life that was lived transcends the inevitable. Jesus was not crucified alone. There were two others crucified with him. They also knew that they were going to die. Both had feared the inevitability of their death but one, as he hung on the cross beside Jesus suddenly turned his thoughts and words from the reality of the moment to embrace the future possibility. "Jesus," he said, "remember me when you come into your kingdom." And the final prophecy from the mouth of Jesus was uttered, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Those who gathered around the cross could not understand the meaning of these words. They still lived in the immediacy of the moment. There was a body to be buried, a tomb to be prepared and oils to be found. It would be three days before the future arrived and even then it wasn't clear exactly what this meant. To predict your own death is impressive but not all that unexpected. Everyone dies, sooner or later. It's all the things that come after death. For those of us who are still here there are questions, uncertainties, feelings, memories (both good and not so good), regrets and satisfactions. The future is strangely changed by a death. That is what the beginning of Holy Week is all about. Anticipating what is already known and being surprised by what is yet to come. We know we will all die. But the wonder of this Holy Week is what we do with that fact. We look to the promise and the possibility. I look out the windows of this church at trees and bushes that only weeks ago looked so stark and dead, yet now I anticipate the green. I have already seen the promise of life in the crocus and daffodil blooms, the grass is greener today than it was yesterday. The farmers are planting the single seeds that will soon grow into bounty and yield. This could all just be a coincidence. But I could have predicted last fall that the trees would turn green again this spring. This I do not just believe but I know to be true because I have come to trust my God who created all things and set the order of the seasons. So we journey into Holy Week anticipating the Maundy Thursday meal, the Good Friday descent into darkness and the promise of Easter morning.
This is the future God has given each of us, that we pass through the events of this world until we like Christ rest in the grave. But the story doesn't end there. Even from the cross Jesus could see that and invited first a criminal and then each of us to join him in a future that is his to offer us. He used the word paradise. Call it what you will, what matters is that he offers it to each of us. So we live this Holy Week not just in this moment but into Christ's future.
Amen