Palm Sunday

What’s going on? Why all the excitement? Obviously, the way Saint Mark describes the scene in Jerusalem this morning fills it with symbolism – some of it obvious, some of it not so much.

The atmosphere in Jerusalem at that time was tense. Jesus had become a very public figure and that made the Jewish authorities nervous. People were beginning to talk openly about Jesus as the Messiah – the anointed king in David’s lineage who would restore the independence of Israel. The authorities knew that this talk was seditious and, if they allowed it to continue, it could bring down upon them the wrath of Rome. As it was, they enjoyed a fair amount of freedom and autonomy both religiously and politically; but all that could vanish in an instant if Rome smelled revolt. The result was that the authorities needed to get Jesus out of the way before his increasingly popular movement got out of hand.

Jesus and his disciples were well aware of the danger. Until then, every year Jesus had fulfilled his obligation and an adult Jewish male to go up to Jerusalem for the Passover. Both his disciples and his followers in Jerusalem questioned whether or not he’d risk it. The answer was a considered “yes.” As he neared the city, the people grew excited because they realized that Jesus was willing to stand up against the powers-that-be: certainly, the Jewish authorities and perhaps even Rome.

Saint Mark goes to some length to describe the preparations for Jesus’s entry into the city. Although he doesn’t quote the prophet Zachariah directly, he doesn’t need to. The people were well-versed in the prophesies of the coming kingdom and knew what to expect, as the prophet wrote:

Rejoice heartily, O daughter Zion,
shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king shall come to you,
a just savior is he,
meek and riding on an ass,
on a colt, the foal of an ass.

The passage goes on to describe how the king will banish all things military from the city. The shouting, the palm branches, the laying-down of cloaks in the road before Jesus all made clear how the people interpreted Jesus’s coming into the city. Their liberator had arrived!

If that wasn’t enough, their words tell the rest of the story. “Hosanna!” This joyful shout meant “save us!” It was the ancient equivalent of “God save the king!” And the rest of the shouting – “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” – came from Psalm 118. During the early kingdom of Israel, this was the psalm sung by the people to welcome their king into the temple precincts. Evidently, the people were convinced that they were witnessing a revolution and the restoration of Israel as a great and powerful sovereign state once again.

Every preacher who has commented on this Palm Sunday gospel has pointed out the dichotomy between the shouts of “Hosanna!” today and the shouts of “Crucify him!” just a few days later. But here is the lesson we can come away with: the citizens of Jerusalem had certain expectations – expectations of Jesus and expectations of God. Yet all expectations are premeditated resentments. When Jesus failed to live up to their expectations, the crowd turned on him.

When God fails to live up to our expectations, do we turn on him? Yet God never meets our expectations! God always exceeds them because our expectations are too small. How long before we’re able to comprehend that, like the crucifixion, our greatest failures become God’s greatest triumphs? Look back and see how, time and again, God has rescued us from ourselves. Our crosses have not been dead ends, but each one has become a doorway to a richer, fuller life. So, even though crosses still await us, we can still shout with faith, “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”