PalmSunday
“And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” – the9th verse of the 21st chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew.
+May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my Redeemer.
The lessons and commemorations for HolyWeekare what may be described as a spiritual roller coaster. We go from our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem with a procession carrying palms whilesinging ‘all glory, laud and honor,’ to the Last Supper, His agony in the garden, His trial and scourging, to Golgotha and His death on the cross and his being placed in the tomb. We will light the Paschal Candle from the new fire commemorating His resurrection and then celebrate His triumph over death in a week on Easter Day. Moreover, we do it in real-time. The span of time from the adoring crowds singing Hosannas, to the crowds crying give us Barabbas, to the Cross, to His death, and to His resurrection, was but a week. At Christmas we place the Nativity, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and the visit by the Magi within a twelve-day period. It may have really been a few months or even a few years between those events, butthe events we remember this week we know happened within seven days or so.
We began today with palms and a procession. We hear again St. Matthew's account of our Lord's entry into Jerusalem. It is the same gospel we heard on the 1st Sunday in Advent we when prepared for His first coming and were reminded to look forward to His second coming: His return. Today, though, we remember His coming into Jerusalem to set the stage to accomplish His task. As St. John records it, our Lord's final words on the cross are "It is finished" as he bows his head, and gives up the ghost. (John 19:30) If just a man, the Son of Man could have led those adoring crowds and liberated Jerusalem to establish his kingdom. That is what they wanted. "Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest" is how St. Mark records the words of those who covered His path with branches (Mark 11:10). The expectation was for a restoration of a temporal, worldly, kingdom. But, as St. John records our Lord's answer to Pilate: "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." (John 18:36) As with previous occasions, Jesus would not settle to be lifted up by the crowds. He knew that that would not accomplish His task. He knew it would not be finished unless He was lifted up on the cross. Only then could He say "it is finished."
In contemplating these events, these highs and lows, I think we all may tend to see the actors in the drama as others and not as ourselves. In the middle of the 19th century the Reverend Edward Pusey, an Anglican priest instrumental in what is called the Oxford Movement that revivedthe Church of England, delivered a sermon on a Palm Sunday that focused the sin of Judas but touched on all of what we have heard today. A small portion of that sermon is as follows:
This day [is a picture], not of the world, but of those who [attend churches, coming] to meet Jesus at all. And what is it? A multitude following Jesus for the hour, when something stirs them, and straightway forgetting Him; nay, ready to give Him up and choose in His stead any worldly idol, which abets their ends, or flatters their passions; and some repenting, some repenting not. His Nearer disciples, trembling before the mad multitude, which denies and persecutes Him; hold converse with Him at one moment, and then ashamed to own Him; defending Him in an unseemly way and with hot rash temper, and then denying Him; and one betraying Him, repenting a fruitless repentance, and dying in his impenitence.
We have begun, this morning, that solemn course of reading the four-fold history of His Passion; His betrayal, denial, Crucifixion. We felt sorrow forit, condemned Judas, the Chief Priests, Pilate, the Jews. And yet it is but a part of what too many have been, of what some are. For tochoose sin is to reject Christ; to be ashamed, for fear of man, to do what Christ commands, is to deny Christ; to do, for fear of man, what Christ forbids, what is it but Pilate, to condemn Christ? For a Christian to be guilty of willful deadly sin, what is it, but to crucify Christ afresh, and put Him to an open shame?
Of these, Judas is the type of some among those who approach nearest and oftenest to our Lord, hear most His words, and do them not. He, the betrayer of our Lord, is not an example for the world, not for those who blaspheme Christ, or openly disbelieve in Him, or neglect Him, or go, like the prodigal, into a far country way from Him. His is the type and warning for those whom our Lord suffers to come nearest to Him; to whom He vouchsafes to disclose most of Himself; whom He counts among His friends; to whom He entrust His sheep, or to whom as Communicants , He gives His own Body and Blood. He is type and warning, in their degree, for all who have been made His members, or who hear His word; who know, by hearing, of His truth and love, who come to His house, or have been taught to pray in His Name.[1]
The Reverend Pusey goes on to make his point, but I think it is clear. Those who cried 'give us Barabbas' are the same who earlier cried "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest." He finishes, though, with words of promise:
Do what ye know to be pleasing to God, and avoid, by the grace of God, what ye know will displease Him, and God will enliven your repentance and enlarge your faith, and brighten your hopes, and kindle your love. Only be very diligent, not, knowingly, to do anything which displeases God; be very diligent not to tamper with your conscience, and do what you doubt may displease God. Yield not to Him a stinted service, and the glorious everlasting Easter day will soon be here, when ye shall find every sacrifice ye have made; every tear ye have shed; every deed of love which, by God's grace, ye have done; every petty self-denial; every coin which, whether out of your poverty ye have given little, or out of your abundance largely; all the love of Christ which ye have cherished, stored up to be repaid with [interest] in the love of the Ever-Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Who have compassed your redemption, that ye might be like Them in life and love everlasting, and made you for Themselves, that ye may be one with Them.[2]
+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Mark Trout, St. Mary’s Denver on Palm Sunday, March 24, 2013.
1
[1] E.B. Pusey, Parochial Sermons, Volume II, (Printed by Devonport Society, Plymouth, England, 1869), pg 199.
[2] Ibid, pg 215.