TEXT: John 12: 12-15 nrsv

Palm Sunday

We are looking at the Easter narrative through the lenses of three generations: the Boomers, the Gen Xers, and the Millennials—through the key questions of What is true? What is real? and What is good?  Our aim is to discover how the gospel meets the heart of each generation in order that we may grow in our ability to share the good news of Jesus with all.

WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT PALM SUNDAY?

The “truth question” plays out more clearly through questions like, “What actually happened?” Is it possible to know what is historical and true about the triumphal entry from reading the four gospels? There is a great deal of disagreement among them and this poses a great problem for credibility among some readers.

In Matthew, there are two animals—a donkey and it’s colt—and the cloaks are place on them and Jesus rides the two of them.  Mark and Luke specify an unridden colt, and John names a young donkey.

In Matthew, the crowd spreads cloaks and branches on the path. Scholars inform us that there were no palm trees growing in Jerusalem in the time of Christ. Olive trees, yes, and plenty of what they called sycamores which were what we would call carob trees, but no palms. Down in Jericho—a morning’s walk—there were palm trees by the thousands, and we know that palm fronds were likely carried up to Jerusalem on a regular basis as a common building material. The branches of Matthew were likely cut from nearby trees and shrubs, but palms are not mentioned. 

In Mark, the people gather “leaves from the fields,” which could mean anything from grasses to shrubs to the trees of Matthew.  Again, no palms.

Luke speaks only of cloaks and leaves out branches altogether. Only John mentions palm branches.

All four gospels record different responses to the parade as well. Matthew records the crowds asking, “Who then is this?” to which others answer, “Jesus, a prophet from Nazareth.” Mark offers his characteristic irony and bathos as Jesus and his disciples enter the temple after the triumphal entry—the crescendo builds as the crowd’s messiah steps onto holy ground to take his stand against the hypocrites and the occupying powers, only to hear next:

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. —Mark 11:11

Luke records the Pharisees’ objection to Jesus and their fear of the crowd. “Tell everybody to pipe down!” they say, afraid of aggravating the Roman soldiers’ itchy trigger fingers. “Even the stones will cry out,” says Jesus, who would not dance to their tune.  John focuses on the Disciples’ reaction, which is that they had no idea what was going on.

With all these differences, is there anything we can say about what really happened on “Palm Sunday”? Most definitely.

While the edges of the narrative are fuzzy, all are crystal clear in the main event and main proclamation.

We know for sure that Jesus entered Jerusalem celebrated as both king and messiah. Riding a donkey up to the temple, Jesus certainly knew that to be seen playing the part of a king could be considered an act of treason against Caesar, punishable by death, yet he went forward as if it were the Rose Parade.  Only kings or emperors rode their horses up to the temple; most people—even the Jewish leaders—walked.

All gospels agree on this donkey ride up to the temple. This is all about kingship.

The crowd proclaims him king and messiah. Most significantly, the even is seen (in retrospect, of course) as the fulfillment of messianic passages.

Then hurriedly they all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps; and they blew the trumpet, and proclaimed,
“Jehu is king.”  —2 Kings 9: 13

The spreading of cloaks may have been a self-aware expression of Jesus’ royal status as a “son of David.” It may have just been a sign of honor; either way, Jesus is celebrated as king.

It is from Maccabees that come to understand the significance of the palms from John. 

“The Jews entered the citadel with shouts of praise, the waving of palm branches, the playing of harps and cymbals and lyres, and the singing of hymns and canticles, because a great enemy of Israel had been crushed.”
—1 Maccabees 13:51

The palms were a sign of Israel’s triumph and preservation. This is what the crowds expected of their messiah, from Jesus. From Psalm 118: 25-26 we hear:

Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Jesus’ name is Yeshua—Joshua—which means “he saves.” They cry out “O Save, ‘he saves’, that is, “Hosanna Yeshua!” This is clearly an intentional proclamation of Jesus’ messiahship.

We also know that the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders were fearful of the Jesus movement. This was likely not the first messianic parade into Jerusalem. Others had been called messiah and all ended up dead or deposed. Romans took delight in crucifying any and all who challenged the rule of Caesar and Rome. The Jewish leaders struck a balance with the Romans to preserve at least some of their Jewish practices. The relationship was tenuous, and terms could be changed at the drop of a hat. The last thing they wanted was to give Rome a reason to crack down and revoke their liberties. No fans of Jesus, these leaders confirm what really happened, albeit from a dissenting point of view.

WHAT IS REAL ABOUT PALM SUNDAY?

The real question is who is real? First,  there are huge crowds at Passover. Jews came from all over the known world to celebrate in Jerusalem. They celebrated their hopes, their Jewish identity, and their heritage in a week of worship and feasting. During the triumphal entry of Jesus, the people cheer like mad, but are they real? Not likely; I say they’re phonies. Individuals, when questioned, will see both sides of an issue and its subtleties and nuances; but a crowd simplifies everything. There is pride in numbers, and mob mentality quickly eclipses anything like careful shading or reasonable dissent. This is what political conventions are: mob behavior events to work people into a unilateral lather, spewing hate and the opposing party and hiding self-righteousness behind the great wall of groupthink. It is a falseness factory, reducing rational discourse to a rabid pep rally.

The people wear masks that say, “We are Israel and we are worthy of God’s love.”

They have to be okay in and among themselves, in part so that they can keep hating the Romans for oppressing them.

Their march isn’t for Jesus; it is a parade for themselves—a collective proclamation of their own dignity—a declaration of their presumed right to empowerment.

We see this same attitude in many contemporary protests and marches. It doesn’t matter what side of the political fence you pick—but we can all see many of these marches as a form of group/self exaltation. When the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led his marches they were exceptional and they absolutely changed history, but most attempts by activists—left and right—to imitate his worthy and selfless movement have fallen far short, amounting to little more than a kind of hypocrisy. When Jesus tells his disciples to “do not be like the hypocrites, who pray in the temple (and public places) in order to be seen.”

I’m not saying that all protesters are selfish or lacking in sincerity, but I certainly see(and anyone who looks closely will certainly see) elements of hypocrisy and self-righteousness within  every popular “moral” movement.

The leaders are no better They are the flagship of Judaism, so they have to be okay in their own eyes, therefore this Jesus must be wrong. They watch and point at point at the spectacle saying, “That Jesus is a phony—just look at him playing at being king and messiah!”

Their interest has nothing to do with Jesus; it is simply a matter of preserving their own security and authority. They serve their own masks.

The only GOOD during the  triumphal entry is Jesus, who is in fact the true King of Israel, the Prince of Peace, and the true high priest ascending to the temple to present the atoning sacrifice and issue in the blood covenant promised in Zechariah:

“Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion.Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt! He shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your captives free from the waterless pit.

Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem is a prophetic sign. We know he is real because he is the fulfillment of messianic prophecies that no one saw being fulfilled at the time. Zechariah makes clear that the messiah is:

1. a king of peace, not war.

2. king of whole world, not just the Jews.

3. one who will set his people free from “the Pit” by a “blood covenant.”

All of these are fulfilled by Jesus.

Jesus is revealed as the real thing when all around him are false. The parade is a sham of self-interest and selfish desire for gain, but Jesus is completing the plan.

WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT PALM SUNDAY?

To answer what is good, we have to return to return to last week’s text, Mark 10:17-18:

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

In the whole scene, the only good we find is in the one who orchestrated the entire narrative: God alone. We also see the goodness of God embodied in Jesus, who allowed the celebration in spite of its phoniness. What grace! And what a lesson to us, for Sunday by Sunday we too lift up our praises. We too shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” And we too find our enthusiasms fueled by self-interest, self-preservation, and the constant drive to be told that we are special somebodies. We, like the crowds, mix our self-interests in with every praise. We, like the Jewish leaders, see in Jesus a threat to our worldly securities and personal controls.

Even so, just as Jesus smiled with the crowds, laughed in celebration, and received the false praise as though it were real; so he receives our every prayer and praise, tainted as they may be, and in receiving them corrects them, blesses them, and by his work turns them into authentic praise.

The Holy Spirit is that power by which our broken words and half-hearted songs are presented to The Lord sanctified, purified, and imbued with a value we can not possibly give them. He makes good of our every gift, even the worst of them.

PALM SUNDAY BLESSINGS

What do we really know of Palm Sunday? We know several things, but I think I can reduce it to an odd, unusual, but appropriate benediction for the day:

TRUTH IS STRANGE

BUT JESUS IS REAL

AND GOD IS GOOD.

†