Mark 11:1-11 (Philippians 2:5-11)

This morning I want to begin with a song.  (Jon, could you play the music).   Remember this song?  From “Jesus Christ, Superstar?”  It is a very catchy song.  A perfect song for a parade, don’t you think?  This morning, in our text, we encounter a parade that is – I think – the most well-known one in human history.

It was Passover time and the Holy City was jammed.  It was like the crowd at Times Square on New Year’s Eve.  But, they were not tourists; they were pilgrims from all over the world.  They welcomed Jesus shouting, “Hosanna.”  It means “save us now.”   Save us from what?

If the gospels hint at the crowd’s motivation, it was that the people wanted to be “saved” from the Romans.  They wanted deliverance from an occupying army.  Jerusalem was a political hotbed at the time of Jesus, just as it is today.  And there were serious people in that crowd.  They were looking for a revolution.  At our Bible Study a couple of weeks ago, I said, Judas didn’t sell Jesus away for money.  He betrayed Jesus because of his disappointment in Jesus.  Judas expected of Jesus to be a military messiah, not suffering servant.

I think some background information is necessary here to understand the first Palm Sunday situation.  I will try to be as brief as possible, but please bear with me.  First of all, there was a strong nationalistic fervor stirring.  And the palm branches were something very meaningful and provocative to these people. 

When people shouted “Hosanna,” waving palm branches, they thought back to 200 years before, during the reign of the brutal Epiphanes.  He was the Syrian dictator Assad of his day.  In 167 B.C. Epiphanes precipitated a full-scale revolt when he set up an altar to Zeus right in the middle of the Jewish temple and sacrificed a pig on it.  It is unthinkable.  Hard to imagine a greater slap in the religious face to the Jews. 

Stinging from this outrage, an old priest named Mattathias rounded up his five sons, all the weapons he could find, and a guerrilla war was launched.  Old Mattathias soon died, but his son Judas, called Maccabeus kept on, and within three years was able to cleanse and to rededicate the desecrated temple. 

But the fighting was not over.  It would be a full 20 years more, after Judas and a successor brother, Jonathan, had died in battle, that a third brother, Simon, took over, and through his diplomacy achieved Judean independence.  That would begin a full century of Jewish sovereignty. 

Of course there was great celebration.  1 Maccabees 13:51 reads, “On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred and seventy-first year, the Jews entered Jerusalem with praise and PALM BRANCHES, and with harps and cymbals…, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel.” 

This is a story as well known to the crowd in Jerusalem that day as George Washington and the defeat of the British is known to us.  During the period of self-government that followed, the Maccabeans minted a victory coin, with PALM BRANCHES on it. 

On this day of Jesus’ arrival into town, there had already been thirty-two political riots in the past five years, an average of six per year.  Jerusalem was ready to go up in flames at any moment.  With hundreds of thousands of faithful pilgrims in town who ALL hated Rome, you get a sense of the situation. 

Knowing the history allows us to read the minds of those who were waving the branches.  The palms were not a symbol of rejoicing.  They were a political statement.  We have no comparable symbol in our country, but if you can imagine the United States under the domination of a foreign power, and what it might mean to display the American flag in such circumstances, you might have some idea.  These folks were going out to meet Jesus in hopes that he was coming to crush and remove another great enemy. 

Welcome, King of kings!  Hail, conquering hero!   Hosanna!

But it is mind-boggling to find out that in few days, they stopped shouting “Hosanna.”  Instead, they exclaimed, “Crucify him!”  What on earth had happened? 

For those who were looking for a conquering hero, one who would throw off the oppressive yoke of Rome, Jesus did not materialize their hope.  Yes, Jesus was a leader, but not the kind they had envisioned.  They were so disappointed in Jesus.  Especially, Judas was so upset that he could sell Jesus away to die.  And we know the rest of the story.  With this Jesus there would not be insurrection but resurrection. 

Now, let us think about us.  Twenty centuries later is it all that different?  We still want to make Jesus into the Messiah of our agendas.  We hear all the time from radio and TV evangelists who preach, “Jesus is the answer,” no matter what the question.  If there is cancer or heart disease or illness of any sort, Jesus is the answer.  If a marriage on the rocks, Jesus is the answer.  If the kids are out of control, Jesus is the answer.  If it is difficult making ends meet, “name it and claim it” (the motto of the so-called prosperity gospel) say the TV evangelists –  Jesus wants you to be rich; Christ is the answer.  If we are Republicans, Jesus is a Republican; if we are Democrats, Jesus is a Democrat.  If we are independent, Jesus is too.  There are so many Christians who are satisfied with these “sugar-coated” messages, but there are not many Christians who want to listen to “prophetic” messages.

We have to admit that we too want a custom-made messiah, just like those folks along the parade route in Jerusalem, so many centuries ago.  We live in a violent world, a world in turmoil.  Every day the news is filled with the stories of war, murder, suicide-bomber, and chaos.  No wonder we want conquering hero, not suffering servant.  We want victory, not Calvary. 

But, into this our troubled world, this week, once again, steps someone who would offer another way.  He rode into Jerusalem, not on a chariot with arms upward and outward and his fingers spiking a “V” sign for victory.  There was no oratory to get the revolution moving.  No.  Here in this turmoil, Jesus said nothing.  Silence.  Not on a war horse, but a donkey.  And by the end of the week he quietly gives himself into the hands of vicious men.  He allows himself to be bloodied and beaten, then finally crucified to hang helplessly and die. 

As the Apostle Paul wrote, “[Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!”  We know that.  It’s so sad.  But, we also know (that) that was not the end of story.  Paul continued: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

As Paul pointed out, the story did not end with the death on the cross.  There is more to this story.  I guess the hosannas are not halted after all.  

Now, let us turn to the insert and join me in the Palm Sunday Litany.

Amen!