Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday – 010407SUam.

Readings: Psalm 118: 19-29; Matthew 21: 1-11

And so, on a Sunday morning, not far off 2000 years ago, a joyful procession was moving up the road towards the gates of Jerusalem, the great city of David. One man was riding on a donkey, surrounded by his friends and supporters, who were spreading their coats in the road and waving palm branches and singing songs of praise. At least, that what how it appeared on the surface. But there were deep undercurrents involved that would not have been apparent to the casual observer.

Today is Palm Sunday. We are only a week away from Easter. Now I wonder what you would have thought if you had come in here this morning and found a Christmas Tree here on the platform with coloured lights and decorations – not to mention hundreds of coloured tokens! I expect you’d think that someone had totally lost the plot! It would be quite out of place for this time of year. But that is what was happening on Palm Sunday.

Let me explain – a little bit of history. About 200 years earlier, Israel was ruled by the Seleucids, the descendants of Seleucius, one of Alexander the Great’s generals. When Alexander died, his Empire was divided between four of his generals and the Seleucids ruled the portion of the Empire that included Israel. It was a time of oppression, as the Seleucids tried to force the introduction of Greek culture to Israel. The climax came when Antiochus IV Epiphanes came to power. He tried to put a complete stop to the Jewish worship – he actually went as far as to erect an altar to Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem. And this action brought out the Jews in open revolt against their Seleucid rulers. Firstly under Mattathias Maccabee and then his son Judah Maccabee they mobilised for war and defeated a vastly stronger army and kicked the Seleucids out of their land. They restored the temple worship, and in a great ceremony the temple was rededicated.

And this event was remembered (and still is remembered) every year at the feast of Hanukkah. And Hanukkah is usually celebrated in December. 2 Maccabees tells us that “The Jews celebrated joyfully for 8 days as on the feast of tabernacles.” The feast of tabernacles was when they would go camping for a week and build tents out of branches and carry palm branches. And that was how they celebrated the rededication of the Temple. 2 Maccabees goes on to say that “carrying rods entwinted with leaves, green branches and palms, they sang hymns of grateful praise to Him who had brought about the purification of His own Place.” Does that sound at all familiar today?

And the hymn that they would sing at this time was the “Hoshanna Rabbah”, the Great Hosanna – Psalm 118 – that we read from this morning. It talks about going up to the temple carrying branches – celebrating the fact that God has saved them – that God has sent them a champion to lead them to victory.

And so on that first Palm Sunday the people were ready for another Judah Maccabee to save them from the Romans. And Jesus comes riding towards Jerusalem on a donkey – a direct fulfilment of the prophecy in Zechariah 9 of the coming King who will defeat their enemies and bring peace and rule to the ends of the earth.

And so they welcomed him as their saviour. They celebrated his arrival in the same way that they celebrated the restoration of the second temple, even though it was springtime and not December. The sang “Hosanna!” – “Save us, O Lord!” They followed him into Jerusalem where he purified the temple, not from the pollution of a Greek altar but from the pollution of the greed of the temple authorities. And so the crowd was in a state of high excitement. They were waiting for Jesus to call them to throw out the Roman invaders in the same way as Judah Maccabee had thrown out Antiochus IV and the Seleucids.

And the Jewish authorities were scared stiff. They had managed to come to an arrangement with the Romans so that they could continue their worship and hold onto their authority and positions. And this upstart Jesus was going to ruin everything for them. There was no way he would be able to so much as dent the Roman military machine. But the Romans would crack down hard. They would remove these authorities who couldn’t keep their own people in order. The rulers would lose their power and prestige, just because of one man who had caught the imagination of the people. And so Jesus had to be stopped.

And as Jesus rode into Jerusalem he was indeed coming as King and as Saviour. But not in the sense that the people expected. The people had big dreams of what Jesus would do. But Jesus’ agenda was far bigger than they could have begun to imagine. He was coming as saviour – not just of the Jews but of the whole world. He was coming to be King – not just of Jerusalem but of everyone who would receive him. He was coming – not to make war against Rome, but to make peace with God for us all. He was coming – not to save them from the oppressive power of Rome, but to save the world from the oppression of guilt and sin. He was coming – not to lead his followers to death on the battlefield but to bring life, eternal life, to everyone who would put their faith in him.

And to do this, to save the world, he had to give up his life as a sacrifice for sin. He had to give up his life to take our place – the punishment that should have been ours. He had to give his life as a ransom for many. And he did just that. He saw it through to the bitter end. And this seemingly innocent ride into Jerusalem on a donkey became the key that focused the determination of the priests to get rid of him. It led directly to his being executed just 5 days later nailed to a wooden cross. And we have remembered what he did this morning when we shared the communion meal together.

On that Palm Sunday the crowds welcomed him into their city. The gates were opened to let him come in. But the crowds had the wrong idea of what he was coming for. They thought that he was coming to fulfil their dreams. They thought that they could tell him what they wanted him to do. They thought he would carry out their limited agendas. They thought he was there for their purposes. And so they welcomed him in. But as the week went by and they discovered that he hadn’t come to give them what they wanted they turned against him. And the title “King of the Jews” was scrawled on a piece of wood nailed to the cross above his head as he died for you and for me.

And over this next week we shall be remembering the events of that week that followed on from when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. On Thursday evening we shall be remembering how Jesus celebrated one special and significant meal with his disciples, the meal that we have shared in this morning. On Friday morning we shall remember how Jesus died on the cross for us, giving his body, pouring out his blood, the reality that the symbols of bread and wine lead us towards. And then on Easter Sunday we shall remember how Jesus rose from death to life, the guarantee of our hope of eternal life.

But we are not remembering these events simply because it’s nice to revisit them in our minds at this time of year. We remember them because Jesus is calling us to make a response to what he has done. John 3: 16 tells us that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. And believing in Jesus is not simply believing the facts about him. It is about putting your trust in him and welcoming him into your life.

On Palm Sunday crowds of people opened up the gates and welcomed Jesus into their city. But most of them were focussed on what they wanted Jesus to do for them, and if he wasn’t going to fulfil their dreams then they wanted no further part in him. And there were other people who did not want Jesus to come into the city because they were afraid that he was going to turn their world upside down.

Is Jesus welcome into your life today? He is coming to you because he loves you and you matter to him. He is coming to be your friend, to be there with you always. He is coming to make your life into something wonderful that you could never reach on your own. His plans for your life are far bigger than you could imagine. He is coming to be your Saviour – to free you from the penalty and power of sin in your life. He is also coming to be King, to be the one who calls the shots in your life.

But how are you going to respond? Are you keeping the gates firmly closed, so that you retain all the authority over your own life? Or are you going to insist that he comes in on your terms, treating him as a servant to give you what you want and make your dreams come true? If you do, you’ll miss the opportunity to receive all that he really has for you? Or are you going to open up the gates of your life and welcome him in as Saviour and King on his terms, so that he can transform your life? Are you going to follow him where he leads you?

As we stand to sing our closing hymn, I’d like to ask you to consider how you are responding to the King who loves you. Are you making way for him and opening the gates and welcoming him into your life this morning, not to fulfil your agenda but to build his Kingdom both in and through your life?