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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dallas’s welcome‑home parade for its Super Bowl champions? The ticker‑tape parade through Manhattan’s “Canyon of Heroes” for relieved World‑War‑II and Korean‑War General Douglas MacArthur? A presidential inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue from the capitol to the White House? To what can we liken our Lord’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, about which we heard in today’s Processional Gospel? Each of those more‑current examples is both similar to and different from that event St. John describes. This morning we consider that Triumphal Entry, and we do so under the theme, “‘Hosanna!’ to our Coming King!”
If you have been around the Christian Church much at all, you probably have heard some description of the Palm Sunday events. St. John, likely writing well after the other evangelists, even seems to presume that his readers know those other accounts. Yet, St. John alone gives us the very details for the name “Palm Sunday”, even as he provides other information about the context for the event. Specifically, St. John reports that Jesus had called Lazarus from the tomb, which prompted the Jewish leaders to consider various strategies for dealing with Jesus. Then, St. John reports that at Lazarus’s home in Bethany, with Lazarus’s sister Martha serving the Sabbath Seder, Lazarus’s sister Mary anointed Jesus, and Passover Pilgrims swarmed there to see Jesus and Lazarus, prompting the Jewish leaders to plot against Lazarus, too, because on his account people were turning away from their Jewish religion and putting their faith in Jesus.
The next day, the large crowd in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast heard that Jesus, Who had done the miraculous sign of raising Lazarus from the dead, was coming there. So, they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, the way people go out to meet a new leader (as in a presidential inaugural parade), with the palm branches serving as symbols of life and victory (somewhat similar to a ticker‑tape parade). The crowd that had been with Jesus when He raised Lazarus continued to spread the news, and the frenzy of people following behind Jesus and coming to meet Him increased. The people ascribed power to Jesus and hailed Him as their Coming King, confessing Him to be the Messiah, the Christ. And, for a change, Jesus seemed to accept their honor and feed their enthusiasm. He found a young donkey and sat on it, fulfilling prophecy (like that of our Old Testament Reading) about the Messianic King coming, coming both to be present with His people and to bring them peace. However, at that time, even the disciples, much less the people, did not quite understand what kind of Messianic King Jesus was.
What about us? Do we understand what kind of Messianic King Jesus is? This past Thursday my trainer asked me about a statement he heard that being poor is a sin. Such thinking may go back to Charles Fillmore, who founded the Unity Church more than one century ago, but the idea is still common today especially among those in the so-called “prosperity Gospel” crowd. They think God’s purpose is to give them material riches here and now, not unlike those in Jesus’s day who wanted to make Him king by force after He made five loaves and two fish feed more than five‑thousand people. Are we like them? What kind of Messianic King do we think Jesus is? Do we think He is simply a miracle worker, Whose purpose is to fix our aches and pains? Or, do we, like the nationalistic crowds of our Processional Gospel, think that Jesus’s purpose is to overturn the current government and to establish a political kingdom of this world? At times we all may have or have had wrong ideas about what kind of Messianic King Jesus is, just as we have sinned in countless other ways, in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone.
Regardless of what their understanding of Jesus’s Messianic Kingship was, the people carrying the palm branches cried out to Jesus, “Hosanna!” The Hebrew word means “Help” or “Save”. At first the word was translated into the language people were using, but over time they came to use the word in its Hebrew form, “Hosanna!” “Hosanna,” they cried out. “Help us! Save us!” As we respond to God’s call for repentance and turn in sorrow from our sin—from our sin of wrong ideas about what kind of Messianic King Jesus is, or from whatever our sin might be—as we turn in sorrow from our sin, you and I also cry out, “Hosanna!” “Help us! Save us!” As we trust God to forgive all our sin, He does just that: He forgives our sin, helping us, saving us, for the sake of His Son, Jesus, Who comes in the Name of the Lord, Who is the King of Israel.
Anointed for His death, Jesus is the kind of Messianic King Who is in total control of the situation and comes to be present with us, His people, and to bring us peace. The Jewish leaders could not do anything about Him until He let them have their way with Him. Ironically, after the feeding of the five-thousand, when people wanted to make Him king by force, Jesus withdrew from them; then, when the Jewish leaders tried to convince the Roman governor Pilate to put Jesus to death, they accused Jesus of making Himself a king. Jesus knew the hatred in the hearts of the Jewish leaders, but He used it to serve His own purpose, that of God’s love for you and for me. Our Hymn of the Day, Paul Gerhardt’s “masterpiece of all Passion hymns”, sings well “of the love of God in Christ for the world’s redemption” with these words:
O wondrous love, what have you done?
The Father offers up his Son, / The Son, content, agreeing!
O Love, how strong you are to save, / To put God’s Son into his grave,
All people thereby freeing!
Motivated by that love for us, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on that young donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of a King coming to be present with His people and to bring them peace. Jesus is that kind of Messianic King, the kind of Messianic King Whose real glory is being lifted up on the cross, defeating sin and death, and thereby forgiving our sins by grace through faith in Him.
The events of the Processional Gospel are not only hi-story, but they are also our story. We this day have enacted the pilgrims’ cry for forgiveness, “‘Hosanna!’ to our Coming King”, and we have welcomed our champion over sin and death with palms (sort of as in a welcome‑home parade for a Super Bowl champion). As we continue that cry of “‘Hosanna!’ to our Coming King”, He continues to answer it by coming. Our King came then and comes now in the Name of the Lord. That Triune Name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is put upon us in Holy Baptism, which also works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. After one baptized makes individual confession, that Triune Name is recalled in Holy Absolution by which our sins are forgiven before God in heaven. And, perhaps most significantly, we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation in Holy Communion, where bread is Christ’s body and wine is Christ’s blood, given and shed for you and for me. The Palm Sunday pilgrims’ cry of “Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord” has long been a part of the Church’s liturgy as our King comes to be present with us and bring us peace in this way.
St. John uniquely tells us, albeit indirectly, how the Holy Spirit reminded the disciples what had been written about Jesus and what had been done to Jesus that first Palm Sunday. Indeed, the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, sanctifies and keeps us in the true faith, even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. This Christian Church, the Daughter of Zion, does not fear but rejoices, as God says through the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah, for the Lord has taken away the judgments against her. Individually, of course, we still sin—by having wrong ideas about what kind of Messianic King Jesus is and in countless other ways—and so we live with daily contrition and faith. In that daily repentance, we daily live in the forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Spirit uses us to draw others to our Coming King so that ultimately the Jewish leaders’ prophecy is more and more fulfilled as more of the people of the world go out after Him.
Not quite a sports champion’s welcome‑home parade, a war hero’s ticker‑tape parade, or a new president’s inaugural parade, the meeting of that first Palm Sunday and the meeting of today give us glimpses of the kind of never-ending glory prophesied in today’s Epistle Reading, when, at the Name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Then, resurrected like Jesus and Lazarus before him, we will be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, returning to earth to be with Him forever. For our participation in that event, our closing hymn prays with these words:
“Hosanna in the highest!” / That ancient song we sing,
For Christ is our Redeemer, / The Lord of heav’n our King.
Oh, may we ever praise him / With heart and life and voice
And in his blissful presence, / Eternally rejoice!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +