The Power of Hope

Text: Matthew 21:1-10

Focus: Palm Sunday

Function: To help people see the nature of salvation.

21:¹When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” ⁴This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:

⁵“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
    humble and mounted on a donkey,
        and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; ⁷they brought the donkey and the colt and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. ⁸A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
    Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

¹⁰When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” ¹¹The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Welcome to Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week.

I remember this day distinctly as we went through the Easter Season in the Church I grew up in.

I was drawn to the story probably because it was fun for us to be the leaders in the worship service as children and it was always fun to see how many adults we could get to circle around the sanctuary waving palm fronds.

Children participating in our Christian Action is an important way to create generations of people who learn to serve humanity like Jesus did.

But the theological point that was stressed to me during this special day of Holy Week was that Jesus was worshiped.

Of course, that is not what the text says. But there is a important point to be made about the symbolism of Jesus riding into the city on a foal of a donkey.

Don Crabill describes the Kingdom of God as the upside down kingdom. What he means is that although it is a kingdom, it isn’t human and it does things in a contrary way to some of the ways that humanity has developed to govern itself and to worship.

And Jesus riding in to town on the foal of a donkey is the kind of upside down thinking that Crabill is talking about. If, for example, Jesus were coming in to town as the military conquerer, like many hoped He would, then wouldn’t He be riding in to town on some sort of majestic steed fitting of the high rank?

By choosing the lowly foal of a donkey, Jesus is making a very direct and political, or I should say, anti-political statement, and that is that the kingdom of God is full of humility. Remember, God has asked three things of us, Do justice, Love Mercy and Walk humbly before God. The Colt was the symbol of humility.

Jesus demonstrates His anti-power agenda. He shows us the new Kingdom of God placed in the hands of the people and not Him as just another form of leader who will inspire for a while but then revert back to business as usual for the poor and the dispossessed.

The People were crying out Hosanna. It was a cry of hope for a better future.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He shows people what to do by His actions, and it isn’t about what to believing the right thing and saying the right words, or praying the right prayer, but doing what God wants us to do. And that is to love one another. It seems pretty simple to me.

And the story does not say that worshiped HIM. They were certainly praising Him, but they weren’t worshiping him. They were praising him as the prophet Jesus from Nazareth according to the text.

What they were shouting is what leads me to that conclusion. Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The word Hosanna is the salient part of this sermon. Hosanna literally means, “Pray, save us.”

Save us. That is what they were crying. Remember, the people were being oppressed severely by the Romans. The story of the nativity and the manger and Jesus being born in a barn is all a result of the roman occupation and the Romans forcing people to give up their homes and move to their ancestral homes so that the Romans could tax them more efficiently.

Imagine being forced to move to a new town with no promise of an income just to pay your taxes. It was oppression that didn’t care for the way it disrupted the lives of those under its bondage.

Save us from those who oppress us is the cry of the people. They had hope for a better future.

The Roman masters were cruel. When they cried Save us to Jesus, they were also crying Save us from the crosses that we see all to often on our landscape that was a reminder to them that it was Roman law and subjugation or a very visible and horrible torture designed to scare those who witnessed it.

The people have strong hope for a Savior. But God is done with war, apparently.

Jesus, on the other hand, was making a completely different statement. Instead of organizing them into an army, as it appeared he might be doing when he asked a crowd of 5,000 to sit military fashion in groups of 50 and then instead of leading an army, he fed them.

He fed them instead of calling them to fight.

I wonder if the crowd is just fickle. Was it the same people on Sunday crying out to him, Save us that cried out Friday morning, Crucify him?

Is the mob that fickle? Were they disappointed that instead of challenging the Roman oppressors, he went into the temple and challenged the political system that allowed the poor to be exploited?

We have been through terrible election cycles over the last decade and maybe that proves that mob is that easily swayed. Maybe.

And Jesus really did demonstrate a different kind of Kingdom.

Jesus brings us a kingdom of love and justice that was and is designed to transform society, politics, kings, presidents, dictators, prime ministers or whatever leads people into a society that loves and cares for the least of these as much as it cares for the rich and the powerful.

Obviously we haven’t gotten there yet.

They didn’t understand it. We still haven’t grasped it. But Jesus is was and is on a His own mission of salvation that looks different that what people expected.

Where they disappointed that the message of Jesus to forgive and love, even their enemies, was a message that Jesus actually meant.

And when he didn’t save them from the Romans, I wonder if that is why the crowd so quickly rejected him.

Or, maybe it was a different crowd. And the text tells us that still even though he was famous, not everyone knew about him yet. So I can’t tell you for sure that this why the crowd rejected Jesus. But it is a huge irony and tragedy how he could have the triumphal entry on Sunday and be killed on Friday.

I think the people rejected Jesus notion of love and forgiveness toward enemies when they realized he meant the Romans as well.

We want to be tribal and care only for our own. We want our side to win. And when it doesn’t, we feel miserable. We are evolutionarily wired to win, for out side to win and us feel good about it. It kept us safe.

And we still do the same thing.

Jesus message of salvation was one of change inside literally of the human psyche to give up the notion of hating “the other” simply because they are not us.

The people hoped for a savior.

And God gave them one in the form of Jesus.

But Jesus wasn’t just there to save the Jews from the Romans, that didn’t happen. Instead, Jesus came to save humanity from violent retributions toward enemies by forgiving the ones who murdered him while he was on the cross.

And for the sake of hope itself, I hope that it was a completely different crowd that cried out “Crucify” on Friday.

Because there were many, many, just and God fearing Jews in the culture at the time who understood as the teacher of the law said to Jesus when he said that loving our neighbor was the greatest commandment.

There were many hoping that God’s love and power would be made manifest and there were thousands who loved and believed in Jesus.

And Jesus did not disappoint them.

The power of Hope, I believe, is ultimately salvation.

The Christ did not leave us abandoned. I know it seems like the world is a violent place and there is a lot that we could be afraid of.

But God is still in the world in us, and in the Church and God still is calling the world to love their neighbor as themselves.

And the mission of Jesus is still being accomplished until the day when the promise is fulfilled that people will beat their swords into plowshares