Christ Our Passover....

The hands that waved the palms would clench into fists waved in the air, as the voices which sang hosannas screamed for blood. And it was all part of the plan.

Grace. Amazing.

Luke 19:28-40

After he had said this, 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."

This is the Word of the Lord.

I don’t think you could have fit another person into Jerusalem with a shoehorn that day. Passover was in full swing, after all, and people had come from all over the known word to bring their sacrifices to the Temple, to eat the Seder meal together, to remember the night, fifteen hundred years ago, when the angel of death passed over the Children of Israel, striking terror into the very souls of the Egyptians, clearing the way for their freedom.

Freedom was very much on everybody’s mind, make no mistake. For seven hundred years, one foreign power or another had controlled Judea. Not since Zedekiah had Israel had its own ruler, and many felt it was high time to overthrow the Romans and take back their country.

So when the rumors started flying around, saying that Jesus of Nazareth was on his way to Jerusalem – hey, you remember, Jesus, right? He was that prophet who had opened the tomb of a man dead for four days, and had raised him? That guy has to be the Messiah! Well of course they would want to get a glimpse of him, to perhaps be witness to the next King of Israel coming in to claim his throne.

Now, those hoping to see a conquering King riding in to take his throne from the Roman occupiers weren’t the only ones craning their necks, straining to see Jesus top the hill from Bethany. Plenty of people had heard about Lazarus, and had heard about how this Jesus fellow had opened the eyes of a man born blind, and had heard about how he fed thousands and thousands of people with just a few barley loaves and fish. Some were hoping for a show, hoping they’d see him do something interesting, maybe say something entertaining.

As Jesus and his band of disciples crested the hill, someone in the crowd started waving a palm branch and shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David!” And every neck craned, every eye peered to get a glimpse of Jesus.

Now, what they expected to see, I can’t tell you. Perhaps the people looking for entertainment expected him to come prancing over the hill, turning water into wine, and passing out sandwiches. Perhaps the people hoping to overthrow Roman rule once and for all were looking for a rider on an armored steed, bloody sword drawn, leading a mighty army into the city to take his throne by force.

What they saw was a man, on a saddle of cloaks, riding a donkey, its colt not far behind.

Some were let down, no doubt. But many remembered the words of the prophet Zecheriah: “Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—riding on a donkey’s colt.”

And shout they did! The “Hosannas” grew to a crescendo, and people began cutting palm branches off of trees, throwing them on the road in Jesus’ path. Others even put their cloaks down, so the royal donkey’s feet wouldn’t touch the dirt. It was amazing to see, a joy to be in the midst of!

But how soon the words that crowd shouted would change!

All too soon, the same throats singing hosannas would be raw from screaming “Crucify him!” The same eyes which strained in hope to see a King would look with revulsion, disappointment, and naked hatred upon the bruised, bloody form of a man condemned to die.

Oh he was still a King, make no mistake. The people were too busy trying to make Jesus fit their own agendas to understand, to see what kind of King Jesus is, though.

Jesus was no stranger to being misunderstood. Nicodemus misunderstood Jesus when he spoke of being born from above. The woman at the well misunderstood Jesus when he spoke of living water. His own disciples, even the inner circle of Apostles, regularly (and it seemed, sometimes, intentionally) misunderstood his words, actions, and intentions. The other people who followed Jesus for the free food and entertainment value, as well as those who expected Jesus to overthrow the Roman government and establish an eternal earthly kingdom misunderstood Jesus as well.

And it’s a misunderstanding which persists to this day.

Today, one week before Easter, we celebrate Palm Sunday in the life of the church. Many churches make it a point to combine this day into Palm/Passion Sunday, taking care to balance the celebration of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the horror of the Crucifixion. The thought behind this is that, unless people were careful to attend Holy Week services like Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, they would go from the triumph of Palm Sunday to the triumph of Easter without experiencing the darkness and pain in between.

It’s a valid argument. Especially for Western Christianity, we seem to spend far too much time acting like those people outside of Jerusalem, hoping for free food or entertainment from Jesus. All too often we treat God like a loving but slightly forgetful grandfather, or a heavenly vending machine. We pray most attentively when we need something, and judge our faith and the faith of others by how prosperous we are.

And especially for Western Christianity, we seem to spend far too much time acting like those people outside of Jerusalem, hoping to see Jesus riding on a war horse, hip deep in blood, slaughtering the oppressive Romans and claiming his rightful throne. We think that God agrees with our politics, supports our country over any other, and especially likes the same football team we do.

But when Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he wasn’t dancing before the crowds, providing bread and circuses. He was silent.

And Jesus didn’t ride a warhorse. He rode a donkey, a symbol of peace.

The thing about Jesus was that he was so in love with the Father, so committed to being completely invested in the will of God and about the work of God, and so radically different from any other person who had ever walked the planet, that, invariably, Jesus did – Jesus does – the unexpected.

He is a King who doesn’t waste his time on an earthly kingdom, because that would be nothing more than regime change. His agenda, God’s agenda, was – and is – justice: both that the poor, the sick, the forgotten and the despised would be recognized, healed, and brought in to community, and that God’s ultimate justice, the reconciliation of humankind to God, is accomplished through the cross.

This King conquers, this King reigns, not with swords or cannon or bombs or proclamations or coups. This King conquers by enduring execution. This King on a donkey conquers by dying. This King conquers death itself through allowing himself to be killed by a ruthless society using the most horrifying of methods.

This king who enters Jerusalem riding a donkey represents something more frightening to the Roman authorities than a thousand legions of enemy soldiers: He represents hope. And because the Temple elite served (and prospered) at the whim of the local Roman leadership, Jesus represented to them something more horrifying than a pig on the altar: the dissolution of the status quo.

It’s no secret that Jesus turned the tables on the halls of power and upset the status quo. Marcus Borg says that by laying down his own life, Jesus denied “the temple's claim to have a monopoly on forgiveness and access to God....God in Jesus has already provided the sacrifice and has thus taken care of whatever you think separates you from God.”

And in that statement is a truth larger than merely upsetting the Romans or abolishing the power of the Temple rulers, far more important than simply overturning the accepted norms, more eternal than the conquest of any kingdom or power or ruler or economy or government. This King on a donkey, in one selfless, eternal act, is God’s statement to the cosmos that we are forgiven, that we are loved, that we are valuable beyond measure, that we are forgiven.

This is a radical grace, one without limits, a depth of love that begs description. This radical grace that God gives, this wildly extravagant love that God has, this egregious infatuation with mankind that God shows is sealed and made sure by the Resurrection.

God’s love is proven in that, at the point in time when we were furthest from the truth, when we were as far away from God as we could be, Christ died for us. On Calvary, as the lambs for the Seder meal were being slaughtered in the Temple courts, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us… and for everyone.

Better stated, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us, and for everyone. While the crucifixion was a singular event in human history, the effects are eternal, ongoing, without pause or cessation. We were saved that day, and are being saved from that day, and shall be saved on the day of Christ’s return.

How, then, shall we respond?

The only possible response is to, as the Apostle Paul writes in the Letter to the Philippians, “Let the same mind be in [us] as was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself…” – the NIV translates that phrase as, “…he made himself nothing…”

Our agendas, our enrollment of God into our own passions and ideals, our co-opting of God into our plans and as a member of our particular interest or cause or political party, all of this must be laid aside in the stark light of God’s abundant, unfathomable love.

This conquering King tops the hill from Bethany, and the donkey he is riding pauses, perhaps confused by the shouting and singing, mesmerized by the waving palm branches and the colorful cloaks laid out before it. And Jesus looks down into Jerusalem, into the belly of the beast, where even now evil men are plotting his death. He hears the songs and cries of hope and lets them float on the air lest the rocks themselves explode with praise. He looks on the people shouting, he looks on the city stretching out before him, he looks upon the occupying Roman legions and their rulers and the Temple elite who whisper their plans… with love.

And with a gently nudge, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Lamb of God rides on in to Jerusalem.

Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us.

Alleluia, amen.

Palm Sunday: The Alabaster Jar

Thanks to Kathryn Matthews Huey, whose work informed this sermon, and to Jace Foster, whose advice helped this sermon stay reasonably on-target. This sermon also (once again) benefited from Jimmy Spencer Jr,'s incredible book, "Love Without Agenda." Seriously, go buy the book. Now. I'll wait.

The audio from the sermon:


Check this out on Chirbit

This song was playing in my head while I wrote the first part of this sermon...

Philippians 2:5-11

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

John 12:12-16

The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord — the King of Israel!”
Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written: “Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him.

This is the Word of the Lord.

They shouted for a savior. They shouted for a king. They shouted because they hoped to see a miracle. They shouted because everyone else was shouting.

But, of course, none of them understood. None of them grasped that, by the end of the week, this man they had lauded as the King of Israel would be writhing in agony, gasping for breath, dying the excruciatingly gruesome, horribly slow, loathsomely humiliating slave’s death of the Roman cross.

I take that back. I think one person besides Jesus understood.

In the crowd that day, listening as Jesus spoke to the Greek visitors we met last week, was a woman. As is so often the case, we do not know her name. Perhaps she was one of the women who had joined with the group early on, perhaps she had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, or perhaps she herself had received healing from his hands. In any case, when she heard Jesus say, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself,” and felt the shock and irritation of the crowd around her, she reacted differently.

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan call this woman “the first Christian,” because she was the first person to take Jesus seriously when he talked about his suffering and death.

While everyone around her was arguing that, if Jesus was the Messiah they had just acclaimed him as, he couldn’t ever die, she somehow understood that this death, this being “lifted up,” was the whole point.

And as the storm clouds gathered, she was the first person to take action. I’m picking up the narrative in the Gospel of Mark, the 14^th chapter, first verse through the 15^th chapter, 47^th verse.

“It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.’

“While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’

“Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.”

We often focus on the argument that takes place surrounding this woman’s actions, and – like the disciples who were there with Jesus – miss the profound beauty, and deep truth, of what this woman is doing.

On the one hand, the Temple elite were brainstorming ways to have Jesus arrested and killed, while on the other, the disciples were still consumed with questions and power plays. Into this steps this unknown woman, offering Jesus love and attention, and lavishing him with generosity. While the criticism over her gift swirls, (“the money could have been given to the poor!”) writer Megan McKenna points out that Jesus was the poor! She writes, “He is the poorest man in that house.”

He is an innocent man facing a brutal execution, and before too much longer, most of his friends will abandon him. He will be left alone, naked, and bleeding, on display for the ridicule and mockery of all. This woman brings a gift equal in value to a year’s wages, an offering of breathtaking splendor, a luxurious indulgence… a gift of preparation for his coming burial.

Jesus was the poorest man in that house. He had given up so much, for so great a need…

“…though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.”

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Imagine the extravagance of going out, seemingly on the spur of the moment, and spending an entire year’s income on perfume. Imagine the reckless abandon of bursting into someone’s home, breaking open the precious vessel that holds the perfume, and emptying every ounce of it on the head of another person. Imagine caring that much. Imagine loving that much.

Now, think of this: Jesus Christ emptied himself. Every ounce.

Please understand: nothing, at any point in the life of Jesus, was forced on him. Jesus poured himself out on purpose. Jesus became a servant on purpose. Jesus became a human being on purpose.

Oh, and those priests and scribes, running around with their plans and their plots and their bags of silver? The Roman governor, Pilate? They may think they have the skills and the authority to force this travelling street preacher from the middle of nowhere into an early grave, but even that – even death – is something that Jesus will do on purpose.

What is more, all of this – God taking the form of man, living the life of a mortal, sacrificing himself for the sake of God’s creation, all of this was settled before anything was, in fact, created at all!

And despite this fact, the pain, the abandonment, the horror that Jesus Christ will feel, the cold and all-too-permanent reality of death, none of this is contrived. It is all very real. Imagine caring that much. Imagine loving that much.

All of our theological studies, all of our creedal affirmations, all of our doctrinal discussions and apologetic arguments boil down to one word, a central, burning truth which has forever changed the course of history, the trajectory of the universe itself: love.

One of the easiest phrases in all of Christianity is the phrase, “Jesus did this for us.” It’s easy, and it’s true… but it doesn’t go far enough.

It would be easy for Jesus to love the woman with the alabaster jar. It would be easy for Jesus to love the Apostle John, who stayed at the foot of the cross with Jesus’ mother all through that horrible afternoon.

But what about Judas? What about Peter, who denied him three times? What about the priests and scribes who dragged him before Pilate? And what about Pilate, who was too cowardly, in the end, to do what he knew was right? What about the Roman soldiers, who gambled away his clothing? Or that one particular soldier, who shoved a spear through Jesus’ heart after he died?

It’s easy to imagine God loving the people like us, dying for our friends and our family. But what about “them:” people who are not like us? People who look different than us, think differently, act differently, believe differently?

Imagine that year’s salary, spent on perfume, is your year’s salary. And imagine yourself  being able to choose anyone on earth to empty that incredibly precious perfume on… and choosing the vilest, most frightening and despicable human being on earth to receive that gift. A sworn enemy. A bloodthirsty rival. And imagine doing it with no assurance that this monster of a human being will in any way change?

That is exactly – exactly – what Jesus did. Romans 5:8 confirms this: “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

And who is “us?” Every human being.

That’s right. There is no “them.” Jesus poured his life out for every person: the Trayvon Martins and the George Zimmermans, the death row inmates and their victims, the Mother Theresas and the Joseph Konys, the Fred Phelpses and the Billy Grahams…

As followers of the risen Christ, as people who know about this all-encompassing love, as the beneficiaries of that love, as the recipients of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, will we stand around like the disciples did when that alabaster jar was broken, shaking our heads at the waste, or will we instead shout “Hosannah!” in celebration of the gift?