The Palm Reading – Luke 19.28–40
He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” just say this: “The Lord needs it.” ’ So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ They said, ‘The Lord needs it.’ Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,
‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’
Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, who in your tender love towards the human race sent your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross: grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
True and humble king, hailed by the crowd as Messiah: grant us the faith to know you and love you, that we may be found beside you on the way of the cross, which is the path of glory.
Readings
Old Testament – Zechariah 9.9-12
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
He will cut off the chariot fro Ephraim
and the warhorse from Jerusalem;
and the battle-bow shall be cut off,
and 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 prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.
Psalm 62
Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.
1 On God alone my soul in stillness waits; ♦
from him comes my salvation.
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation, ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall never be shaken.
3 How long will all of you assail me to destroy me, ♦
as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence?
4 They plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour; lies are their chief delight; ♦
they bless with their mouth, but in their heart they curse.
5 Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul; ♦
for in him is my hope.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation, ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.
Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.
7 In God is my strength and my glory; ♦
God is my strong rock; in him is my refuge.
8 Put your trust in him always, my people; ♦
pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.
9 The peoples are but a breath, the whole human race a deceit; ♦
on the scales they are altogether lighter than air.
10 Put no trust in oppression; in robbery take no empty pride; ♦
though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
11 God spoke once, and twice have I heard the same, ♦
that power belongs to God.
12 Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord, ♦
for you repay everyone according to their deeds.
Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.
O God, teach us to seek security, not in money or theft, not in human ambition or malice,not in our own ability or power, but in you, the only God,
our rock and our salvation.
Gospel – Luke 23.1–49
Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. They began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.’ Then Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ He answered, ‘You say so.’ Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, ‘I find no basis for an accusation against this man.’ But they were insistent and said, ‘He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.’
When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some sign. He questioned him at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. Even Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him; then he put an elegant robe on him, and sent him back to Pilate. That same day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; before this they had been enemies.
Pilate then called together the chief priests, the leaders, and the people, and said to them, ‘You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and here I have examined him in your presence and have not found this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us. Indeed, he has done nothing to deserve death. I will therefore have him flogged and release him.’
Then they all shouted out together, ‘Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!’ (This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; but they kept shouting, ‘Crucify, crucify him!’ A third time he said to them, ‘Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.’ But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.
As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us”; and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’
Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [[ Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’]] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’ The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’ There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’
One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
hymns
511 Ride on, ride on in majesty
90 O sacred head sore wounded
93 Were you there?
89 O dearest Lord
Sermon on Palm Sunday
Today is Palm Sunday, I think it has a rather strange character. What we read as our primary lesson is the passion of the Lord, what he experienced in Jerusalem, after he entered the city on that borrowed donkey, after the crowds had rejoiced greatly, after they strew his way with palms and cloaks. They made a way fit for a king, their king, who is blessed because he comes in the name of the Lord. We re-enact this most significant event of Jesus’ life today. We stand by the wayside waving our palms with exultation and joy. We are the people who crowd the wayfares into the centre of the world, Jerusalem.
But Jesus made his own way into that city when the crowd disappeared. It became a solitary journey, a way that was full of sorrow, bitter, acquainted with grief. People did not stand with him in the name of the Lord. Even Peter lost all courage when asked whether he was one of them from Galilee who were with Jesus, didn’t he? Would we stand tall and proclaim our allegiance to the Lord when the great panoply of the state requires an answer to the question of leadership?
I ask this as we stand in the midst of a trade war, in the midst of invasion of allied countries, in the midst of the destruction of homes and human rights. All of this is happening throughout the world, and we say nothing. We don’t even say to our closest neighbour, “Let us love one another.” Why, sometimes we don’t even confess love within out own families!
Does what is happening today tell us anything about the suffering of Jesus at the centre of the world, at Jerusalem, which we remember during Lent and especially during Passiontide?
However, today we stand with the crowd waving our palms even throwing our cloaks before the Lord as we read the Palm Sunday Reading. We sing hymns of joy as we greet the Lord riding on a donkey into Jerusalem. “Ride on, ride on in majesty!”
We rejoice in our Lord today, remembering how Jesus accepted the adulation of the people crowding the way into Jerusalem at the Passover. We are doing the same, aren’t we? When we come to church here today – I know that my heart rises when we sing of “the triumphs now begin o’er captive death and conquered sin.” I am eager to proclaim “the Father on his sapphire throne awaits his own anointed Son.” I too hope to join the saints praising God, in triune splendour – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That crystal sea, the pure light, the choirs exulting in praise of what is holy – these images compel me to continue.
However, although we proclaim Jesus as Lord, riding in triumph to Jerusalem and his last Passover meal, we have to remember that there are more elements of the story to live through. The story of Holy Week, when we enter Jerusalem to pray with Jesus in the Garden. We expect to have our feet washed, to be stripped of sin as we strip the altar of its decoration, to stand naked before heaven and earth praying that we will be forgiven our frailty in this world as we stand before the cross on Friday.
This is the week of the passion of Jesus Christ our Lord – and it begins with us waving our flags, our palms, as he passes by to endure mocking and scourging and ultimately his own death on an instrument of torture, with his mother standing at the foot of his cross, inconsolable, but taken in by his beloved friend.
These events are inconceivable for us today, but we try to make them real by reading the stories every year, and reminding ourselves of them week by week when we celebrate Eucharist. This is the paradox of our faith. We celebrate the Lord’s incarnation and entry into our lives, as we joined in Christmass festivities. Now we sorrowfully re-enact the Last Supper in our Maundy Thursday rites and shall call it to mind with that shared Seder meal in Lower Cam. The Passover of the Lord is re-lived every year through liturgy – and foreshadowed every week in every Eucharist.
The Protestant tradition does not re-live the events, but it reflects on the events as significant for us here and now. We do not ritually participate in that archetypal meal. Rather we remember everything and apply the significance of events far away in the past to our lives here and now.
Life in the twenty-first century does not take liturgy and ritual seriously, except when it signifies something radically wrong in a person’s behaviour. – We have all watched those cop shows, haven’t we?
Ritual behaviour is seen as aberrant behaviour among “modern man”. This is at odds fundamentally with what the scholar calls “religious man”. Religious participate in ritual wholeheartedly, sometimes even becoming the gods worshipped. At least that is what my professor claimed as the heart of archaic religion. Religion brings the sacred into contact with the profane in order to transform the world from dead matter into numinously charged reality. Far from being neutral or even negative, ritual activity changes the very mundane into positively valued items with which the hero–god dealt with the world in which we live and move and have our being. This is what we say about Jesus and the gospel story, isn’t it?
We stand here waving our palms remembering Jesus our Saviour. We imagine ourselves in Jerusalem at the Paschal event charged to the highest of excitement gladly welcoming Jesus into the city – our city. We sometimes lose ourselves in worship, and we may be there minutes or hours – it doesn’t matter, because we are fully engaged in the event which we re-enact. We are transported to see Jesus right there. Jesus is within a hand’s breadth to the religious imagination. We understand the positive power of the Passion story as we proclaim the reality of faith, as we proclaim with the crowd, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”