Meanings
of the Cross: Love Triumphs
Over Power
Sermon preached by the Reverend Patricia Farris
March 20, 2005
Scripture:
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 and Matthew 21:1-11
Throughout
this entire season of Lent, we have been examining “Meanings
of the Cross.” On the first Sunday, we were each given a cross
made of African palm by families in Tanzania. If you didn’t
get one, there are some extras in a basket as you leave this morning.
This cross, woven of strands of palm while it was still green and
supple, has been a visual reminder of the cross at the end and the
beginning of this journey, the cross at the heart of our faith. And
oh, what many meanings it conveys to us.
Today,
we start over, in a sense. This morning, we are given strips of palm,
small branches that are still green and fragrant. We wave them today,
happy to join the children in acting a bit giddy with excitement and
joy. King Jesus comes and all the people rejoice. With the crowds
of old we wave our branches and shout “Hosanna” to the
king.
Palm Sunday
always feels like a blessed moment of emotional relief between the
drama of last Sunday’s reading of the betrayal and arrest of
Jesus and the suffering and death we know this next week will bring.
This is a day to celebrate and rejoice. Yet, these palm branches will
all too soon be twisted into crosses and we will be forced to dive
far beneath the frivolity of this day into the depths of our King’s
self-giving love.
“Hosanna,”
we sing. It’s a word that actually means something far different
from what we might imagine. It does not mean, “Hail!”
“Praise!” or “We greet you, O Jesus!” It means,
“Save us.” Save us, O King. We must ask ourselves: from
what, for what? Like the whole city on that day long ago, we look
at this king and ask: “who is this?” And what has he come
to do?
We’ll
come back to those questions at the end of this sermon, but first
we must examine again the scene we find ourselves in today in this
passage often called “The Triumphal Entry.” Jesus and
his disciples had traveled from Jericho, along that road made famous
by the story of the Good Samaritan. It was a dangerous road, dry and
dusty, but they had safely made their way to Bethphage at the Mount
of Olives. Atop the mount, amidst fragrant wildflowers if there had
been rain that year, they looked over the city of Jerusalem
(continued...)
"Meanings
of the Cross: Love Triumphs Over Power" by Rev. Patricia Farris,
March 02, 2005
from
the west. Looking down, they would have seen the green tops of olive
trees at the lower levels of the mount and the Garden of Gethsemane.
They would have seen down into the Kidron Valley, and there, the graves
of the great prophets Hagai, Zechariah and Malachi. This site was considered
to be so sacred, that our Jewish brothers and sisters still believe
this to be the place from which the new messianic era and the resurrection
of the dead will begin, here, from the base of the Mount of Olives.
Jesus’
entrance into Jerusalem from that very spot was no accident. He was
signaling something incredibly powerful to the people. He was claiming
his identity as Prophet, as Messiah, as King. They poured out into the
streets that day to greet his arrival. If in recent weeks you have seen
on TV or in the papers pictures of the great crowds gathered in the
streets of Kiev in Ukraine, or in Beirut in Lebanon, huge crowds eager
for change, eager for new leadership, eager for a revolution in power,
you have some sense of what the road into Jerusalem would have been
like that first Palm Sunday morning.
For it was
a time of great political ferment in Jerusalem. For nearly 100 years,
since the year 63 B.C. when the Roman general Pompeii had again enslaved
the Israelites after 300 years of freedom from slavery in Egypt, the
people had been chafing under Roman domination. Uprisings had started.
The Zealots were mobilizing. Around the year 6 A.D. Zaduk the Pharisee
had led a revolution in and around Jerusalem and two thousand of his
followers had been put to death. The Romans executed all two thousand
of them as they did all political prisoners, by hanging them on crosses
to die.
By the time
Jesus entered Jerusalem that day, there had been over thirty riots and
uprisings. It was a time of intense political turmoil and the people
were expecting victory. “Save us,” they cried, “save
us, Son of David.” They thought he was the messiah they had so
long awaited, the new ruler who would bring the long-awaited political
victory.
Do you get
the picture? Do you grasp the power and symbolism and longing and expectation
packed into this moment? To the Jewish people, Jesus was to be their
liberator, the one who would finally bring them to victory and set them
free. And to the Romans, he was a feared and hated threat. They sensed
that he had the power to do this, and they would tolerate no challenge
to their authority.
In the end—the
end which is the beginning of our Christian story—Jesus wasn’t
who anyone thought he was. Even the disciples still didn’t get
it. He wasn’t the Messiah the Jews wanted him to be and he wasn’t
the political usurper the Romans feared. Even so, he paid the ultimate
price and he confounded them all. He wasn’t who anyone thought
he was.
Jesus
signaled his message right from the start that day. “Go and get
me a donkey,” and we’ll ride into town. That was all he
needed to say - a donkey. The king will ride on a donkey. That’s
not how it was supposed to be. Kings and mighty warriors rode white
(continued...)
"Meanings
of the Cross: Love Triumphs Over Power" by Rev. Patricia Farris,
March 02, 2005
stallions,
war horses. This isn’t just Hollywood; it’s how it really
was. Kings rode magnificent, powerful white stallions. They were men
of power. They were men of conquest. They were victors and it showed.
But not
Jesus. “Tell them,” he said, “your king is coming
to you, humble, mounted on a donkey…” We’ve come
full circle for it was a humble donkey that had carried him in his
mother’s womb to Bethlehem to be born. Again, it was a donkey
that carried him in his mother’s arms when they fled to Egypt
to escape King Herod’s wrath and certain death when he was just
a baby boy. His entire life had been all about being a new kind of
King, a totally unexpected King and a King that confounds and turns
the values of this world inside out.
We’ve
heard the story so many times that we like to think that we get it.
But I think it’s still very hard to embrace this king as our
Lord and Savior. A humble king - a king of love, not power. A king
who washes his disciples’ feet and willingly gives up his own
life for them. A king whose kingdom was all about compassion and wisdom
and hospitality, not victory. We say that we get it, but I think it’s
still very hard.
We’re
human, after all. We like winners. We like our teams to be winners.
We like our candidates to be winners. We like our investments to be
winners. We like our hunches to be winners. We like our children to
be winners. We like our lottery tickets to be winners. We’re
human and Jesus knows that. “Go get me a donkey,” he says.
We’re going to do it differently. We’re going to play
by different rules. We’re going to redefine what it means to
win.
The Epistle
reading assigned for this way is from Paul’s letter to the early
church in Philippi. He said it this way to help them understand: “Let
the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus, who… emptied
himself...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… “
This is
winning turned upside down, placing humble, self-giving love above
everything else. Here we have the formula for how we, too, are to
live and what we are to value.
As
the people asked that day, we ask: “Who is this?” Who
is this king who knows no palace, no throne and no wealth? Who is
this king who has no armies, no swords and no spears? Who is this
king who rules from within our hearts? Who is this king who longs
to reshape our values, our friendships, our loyalties, our marriages,
our priorities through love? Who is this king who washes our feet
and over and over and over and over again demonstrates in his very
life how we are to love one another?
(continued...)
"Meanings
of the Cross: Love Triumphs Over Power" by Rev. Patricia Farris,
March 02, 2005
At
the very beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, we came to worship and
received ashes on our foreheads in the sign of the cross. Those ashes
were made in the very ancient tradition of the church from the burning
of last Palm Sunday’s palms. Those very palm ashes remind us
of the depth of our need to repent of the ways of this world. To let
go and let the same mind that was in Christ Jesus be in us. “Save
us,” we prayed, as those palm ashes marked our foreheads with
the cross. Again, “Save us,” we cry, “Hosanna,”
as we wave our palm branches this morning. Turn our minds around,
O Christ. Show to us the meaning of your cross. Open our hearts wider
than we ever thought possible. Teach us your way of humble love.
This
is the last in our series on Meanings of the Cross. Soon, we will
begin to explore all the meanings of Easter. But first we will walk
with our King on his final earthly journey. Our palms will be twisted
into crosses as we pray: “Come, O King, and save us. By your
love, come and save us!”
Notes:
© Patricia Farris, 2005. Permission is given for brief quotation
with attribution. All other rights reserved.
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