Text: John 12:12-19
Ride On, Ride On in Majesty! Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord. The King has arrived! As we have been going through Holy Week, we have continued to touch on how Lent is like a journey. Today, we are in that last stretch of our Lenten journey. The King is coming. Holy Week is beginning. All Glory Laud and Honor to You Redeemer, King! We wave these palm branches, while remembering our King’s entry.
But as you saw when we entered the sanctuary this morning, we have this rugged cross set up. A Christmas tree stripped of its branches and fashioned into a cross. And maybe if this is the first time that you saw it this morning, your heart sank for just a bit. You were reminded of where this King is journeying to. It sure seems like a day of contradiction. What is the celebration about, if our King is going to a cross?
There are two ways to see Palm Sunday. The one never really sees Jesus but the other does. One only sees the celebration, while the other gets to see him up close. One only sees the human idea of Jesus while the other is seeing Jesus in faith.
Here’s the first one:
Imagine with me that you are there 2000 years ago in the crowd. But instead of getting there early with your blanket and folding chairs, it’s like showing up late to the Rose Bowl Parade and you don’t have a bleacher seat. Like me, you’re a little vertically challenged, and you have to be behind a bunch of people. No matter how hard you try to see Jesus, leaning to the left and to the right, you are only blocked by palm branches and people throwing their coats off. You’re excited and maybe you just throw yours too over a bunch of people all jostling to see the King. You hear all the shouts of “Hosanna!” All you see and hear is the excitement, and just like that, before you know it, he already rode by. All you saw was the excitement of the event.
Now, I don’t know if anyone there actually experienced our little imaginative perspective, but it’s kind of a way of explaining how the crowds that did actually see Him and still got him wrong. The crowds throughout the Gospel accounts are amazed by Jesus miraculous works, but they often don’t seem to understand who He really is and what He has come to do. There were certainly many people who followed Jesus around who were excitement junkies, even if they did actually get a look at him. “Show me some signs! Keep those miracles rollin’. Keep on confounding those Pharisees.” Some people thought that the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ, was going to come and set up his reign through a political and military power grab. He’s come to bring his reign, and power over all to bring in the day of fulfillment in a great day of judgment. Political and spiritual rest all rolled up into one through a military conquest.
But when they saw where He was determined to go. They fled. At Jesus, arrest, even his own disciples were gone. And the crowds, whether they were the same people who cheered him on or not, were not around when the thunderous cries came forth, “Crucify! Crucify him!” The cheers turned to jeers. The praise turned to mockery. No one wanted a thing to do with Jesus.
Under this first view, there is no praise of God for a Jesus who doesn’t live up to their expectations. This is a view that only looks for human glory and excitement. The human-glory view does not know what to do with Jesus’ cross. Under this view, Jesus is a failed messiah. He wasn’t able to pull it off. People were looking for the Messiah that would overthrow the nations. And when he was crucified, people who look for the Jesus of human glory can only put Jesus in the camp of the militant, self-proclaimed, false messiahs who were crushed by the Romans… So we stand here in stark contrast between the cross at all of this fanfare. Under this view, Palm Sunday just does not make sense.
Some people have even come up with this false idea that the cross was not always a part of God’s plan to redeem and save. That because the Jews rejected Jesus, that Jesus’ reign is being postponed because he was put to death. So He is not reigning yet. If that is the case, we should not be celebrating Palm Sunday today and calling Him the King, because he isn’t the King yet. Just look around, we might say. Jesus as the earthly King and messiah sure looks like a failure. He was executed on a cross. This view calls suffering bad.
This false view of Jesus continues to be a temptation for us. It seeks to create a Jesus of our own imagination. Maybe we think, okay, clearly the Jesus of “My best life now” and prosperity preaching is false. But we think, at least be the Jesus who gives me the comfortable life. That is a real temptation for us as Americans. We are the richest nation in history. We have the temptation to see Jesus, and cry out Hosanna, but really mean: “Jesus, save me from being uncomfortable. Jesus, save me from ever feeling bad. Save me from ever suffering. Save me, Jesus, from hardship. Save me Jesus, from ever looking like a fool. Save me Jesus from ever feeling helpless and alone.” And when Jesus doesn’t come through in the way that we think he ought, we get disappointed. And some people even end up abandoning their Lord and faith. But these human-concocted perspectives of Jesus all fail because they never really saw the Jesus that comes to bring the real salvation.
This is the first perspective. It only sees Jesus through the human idea of glory. It only sees the pomp and show. But as Paul said, “Jews demands signs and Greeks seek wisdom, But we preach Christ crucified!
The second view is the perspective of faith. This faith is not a choice or a decision. It is simply delivered by God’s Word, spoken into our ears. It’s happening right now. The crowds didn’t get it at the time. Even Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand these things at the time. But looking back, the Lord revealed what these things meant by the Holy Spirit. So imagine with me the other perspective from the crowd but with faith. Imagine that you have one of those roadside spots, up close. And you are given the eyes to see the Lord coming the whole way. But whom we see at the center is truly astonishing. In fulfillment of Zech. 9:9, He doesn’t come in riding on one of those warhorses ready to trample down anyone in his way. He comes on the foal of a donkey, not just a donkey but a donkey’s colt! All this celebration for someone who comes in so lowly of a form. Our King comes riding not dressed a full coat of armor and chainmail, girded with a sword and helmet and ready to overthrow the nations. No, He comes in a tunic and sandals. He comes lowly, in humility, and weakness. And His mind is set on following the will of the Father.
In the face of his cross, Jesus says, 27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
He agonizes in Gethsemane, but still takes the cup according to His will. Peter draws out his sword ready, cutting a soldier’s ear off and says, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” He goes before the Sanhedrin and the and even Pontius Pilate himself and doesn’t defend himself or keep himself from being put to death. Jesus eyes are set on the place where He will be glorified: up there, on the cross.
This is the kicker of all. Christ’s glory, God’s glory, is Jesus on the cross. The glory and power of God is shown in the weakness of the Christ on the cross. Jesus is glorified in his lowliness. He is glorified in His servitude. He is glorified in His humility. This is what Paul talks about in our reading this morning: “Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
God’s glory is the cross, not just the resurrection. It is glory because Jesus faithfully goes to a cross that he didn’t deserve. He is the one faithful one. He makes himself passive. That is why we also call this Passion Week. Christ suffers passively for us. He does not fight back. Instead he takes all the sin of the world on to himself and becomes the curse against those who were cursed under the Law. He suffers and dies. He is counted among thieves. But the thing is He was executed not for himself, but for you! He died a real death. But once death, sin, and the Devil met the life of the Living God, it had to be conquered. It could not kill him ultimately. And that is what we celebrate next Sunday when He rose from the dead. Next Sunday is the only way that we can speak in this way today.
For you, Christ has died. He has taken all of your sin, past, present, and future onto Himself so that it might be reconciled once and for all time. He was actually made sin so that it might be judged once and for all time. This is God’s work FOR YOU. That is God’s glory, because Jesus is your Savior. One day, 2000 years ago, Jesus took all the sin in the world upon himself and atoned for it.
So how do we get this forgiveness that has already been accomplished? You’re getting right now! Because Christ ascended to the righthand of the Father, He now, right now, reigns over the whole world. He reigns over the Church today. And He disburses His good gifts of the Gospel through Word and Sacrament. This Gospel has gone into your ears. YOU are forgiven. This Gospel was poured over your heads in Holy Baptism, where you were joined with Christ. You have died with Him. Christ counted himself among you a sinner, and because you are with Christ, you are declared righteous. This Gospel is placed in your mouths at the Lord’s Supper. Christ reigns, and He reigns today!
We cry Hosanna, “save,” because God has placed the longing for the true Jesus into our hearts and minds by His Holy Word and Sacrament. Not even the praise and longing is something that we do, God did that by His Holy Spirit through His Word. So it is appropriate for us to have Palm Sunday. For us to wave our Palm branches for the arrival of our King. For us to sing, “All glory Laud and Honor to Your Redeemer King.” But we do so with a different perspective than those first crowds. Not because we are better, but because God has revealed to us who our King is and how He reigns. There at the center of our praise is something ugly by the world’s standards. There at the center of our praise is a Messiah suffering and dying for the sins of the whole world. By our own power and strength, we do not want a messiah like this. We despise him and reject him. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, We call Him King, Lord, Savior. Because He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
