Palmarum

Palm/Passion Sunday (04.01.2012)

Text: St John 12:12-19/Phiippians 2:5-11/St Matthew 26-27

 

In the Name X of Jesus. Amen.

 

The borrowed donkey.  The palms and garments on the path.  The complaining, fearful priests.  The cries of the crowds, Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!  Four days from washing His disciples feet and leaving His last Testament.  Five until He is betrayed and run through a shame trial and put to death. 

 

Peter pledges his very life, only to fumble around with his sword in the garden and turn coward at the voice of a servant girl.  Judas betrays innocent blood and takes his own life.  A murder is set free and the Son of God is innocently killed.  The Son of Man goes as it is written of Him; that is, to a horrific, gruesome, bloody death for sinners.  The women weep as though He would not rise.  This is Palm Sunday. 

 

It was not so much a triumphal victory march as it was a steady procession to the gallows.  But despite their murderous rejection, despite the sleepy, weak-willed disciples, despite the angry mobs and the plotting Sanhedrin, despite all that, or rather, because of all that, He rides.  He rides on to die. 

 

He goes to lay down the Life that no one takes from Him.  He goes to make an offering to the Father worthy of all the sins committed in Sodom and Gomorrah, in Hollywood and Indianapolis, worthy of all the sins of the Holocaust and the 9/11 bombings, of playground bullies, of street-gang brawls, worthy of all men’s vain attempts at genocide and slavery and abuse, worthy of all the nasty little things that go on behind the closed doors of our homes and the secret lusts and desires of our evil minds.  He rides into that city that martyred the prophets knowing full well what was in store, what it takes to reclaim you as His own. 

 

Jesus does not do this for sport.  It is not a waste of time.  It’s not as if there was any other way.  There is no other way.  This is the cup the Father has given Him to drink.  This is what it takes, what is costs to redeem you – The Son of God must suffer and die for sins He did not commit so that man is His again and the devil does not win.

 

He rides in to the praise of children so He can drain the cup of wrath for you, in your stead, as your Substitute.  He makes atonement for your actual, present tense sin and guilt.  Indeed the Passover is at hand and the Lamb of God has come to make the final offering. 

 

He has broken down the gates of hell.  He has undone death, robbed the grave, crushed the serpent’s head by His death.  He has opened the Father’s kingdom and named us – murderers, liars, cheats, betrayers, adulterers, blasphemers, and cowards, no more – He has named us now, by grace, by divine proclamation, has named you His.  Christians.  Heirs. 

 

For what does it mean to be anointed with water infused with God’s Name, with His Word and command?  No one can deny His Baptismal work for you.  He has bought you.  You have been transferred to His reign.  You belong to Him and not to the devil. 

It is Palm Sunday.  It is also known as Passion Sunday.  By that we mean His intense suffering and death.  But that is not what passion means.  It doesn’t mean “suffering and death.”  It means “obsessive, driven love.”  This week is known by that name because all of it, everything He did, was driven by intense love that would not let go, that risked all, gave up everything, that died to make you His.  He did it all for you.  Even if it had only been you, Jesus still would have done everything He did. 

 

His obsessive, driven love for you sends Him riding into Jerusalem at the start of a week that will end in His cruel suffering and death.  In only days His Body born of Mary will be brutally beaten and torn and ripped.  But take heart dear ones, for it is then only three days before His same Body is raised to life again and passed through stone; and then again through locked doors.  He showed the Twelve and Thomas His wounds.  And the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

 

That same driven love causes Him to come in that same Body into your midst today.  He is with you always.  He rides into our hall, not as a spirit or a ghost, not as some re-enactment or symbolic meal.  The Sacrament of the Altar is not an exercise of the imagination; some grown-up form of a child’s tea party.

 

He rides in the Body, the Body bruised and beaten, bloodied and pierced, laid in the tomb and raised to Life again.  That same Body, that actual, real, physical Body, the one born of Mary, is place upon the paten and then upon your tongue so that you may confess Jesus is Lord.  You eat what is good, what He gives you, to make you whole, to forgive your sins, to give you His peace.  His Body. 

 

He rides in that Passover week to make a sacrifice, to mark you with Blood that will stave off the angel of death.  And the Blood He shed, the Blood that dripped in Gethsemane, that stained the centurion’s spear, that His broken-heart ceased to pump, that Blood marks the doorpost of your heart: your tongue. 

 

For it is not what goes into a man that defiles Him, but what comes out.  The tongue betrays our evil hearts, our sleepy faith.  And so to purify your heart, to circumcise it, to justify you, to guard and keep you in the Truth, to free your tongues and your body and soul, Jesus places His Body and pours His Blood upon your tongues and to your hearts. 

 

He does what you could not.  He makes you pure from the outside in.  His Body is given and His Blood poured not so that you would consume it, but so that He, His Body and Blood, would consume and cover you.  Death passes over.  You are spared. 

 

He is One who emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, born in your likeness, was obedient unto death and bears the Name above all names; He comes in the Name of the Lord, His own Name.  It is the Name of mercy which saves His people.  Hosanna – Save us, now, we pray.  He rides into Jerusalem to accomplish it.  This is Palm Sunday.  Your prayer is answered.  Amen.