So, it’s Palm Sunday. We’ve waved our branches, sung our ‘hosannas’ and, after service, most of us will wander out, still feeling pretty good about ourselves, despite the looming darkness in today’s gospel. We’ll skip over Maundy Thursday and avoid Good Friday entirely; then come back next Sunday in time for the feast of the Resurrection, having entirely missed the cross.
That’s actually how we tend to deal with unpleasant news, right? – we ignore it, pretend it didn’t happen. When we finally can’t ignore it any more, we respond with the ever-plaintive “why me?” and often find some way of blaming God. After all, what use is a personal God – to use the language of some – if bad things still happen?
And that right there, beloved, is the problem with Palm Sunday; that bad things can, in fact, even happen to Jesus. It’s neither nice, nor neat. To begin with hosanna and end with betrayal is to put ourselves in the central drama our own human existence – that we don’t act consistently, that we play a part in the drama that becomes the crucifixion. On Palm Sunday, the cross becomes a personalized story for us.
For the most part, we love personalized things. If you’re on Facebook, or get email through Gmail, you know that in the sidebars are all sort of ‘personalized’ ads; at least, that’s what they’re called by marketers.
They’re not unusual; lots of companies offer personalized service. They greet you with your first name, and with a couple of taps on a keyboard can know everything there is about you – you, your kids, and your spouse. Businesses that do that make an awful lot of money.
(Curiously enough, though, I recently heard that many visitors to a church become disengaged from the experience when the pastor greets them at the door, or people turn to bless them with God’s peace. I guess, not all things should be personalized.)
Those personalized ads all promise that you can be a better person if you use their product. In reality, the companies are using personal information about you to create the illusion of a relationship with them, because then you’ll feel a responsibility to them, to use their business.
Palm Sunday, leading into holy week – from palms to the cross -- is the penultimate ‘personalized’ story: it is written, scripted, even; a drama tailor-made for us by the Creator of the world.
Today, the crowd welcomes Jesus into their midst as king, and is anticipated as a great conqueror. In the same way, we are jubilant when we meet Christ – when things are going well – but very quickly, that mood can change. There is always a cloud that looms over our celebration.
Beloved, we re-visit Palm Sunday hundreds of times in our own lives. I once drove out of a church service, feeling rested and at peace with the world, thinking that I could manage to ‘love my neighbour’ that week; a feeling that lasted until the next intersection, when someone drove in front of me without looking. How quickly I went from praise to cursing; from ‘hosanna!’ to ‘crucify him!’ - in less than an hour.
Recognizing our own part in the story – our own responsibility – is the only way that Christians can understand the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. Recognizing that we can laud Christ as king one minute and destroy him utterly the next – yet still he asks, “Father, forgive them” – is seeing ourselves in the story.
The night after that triumphal entry, Jesus sits with his apostles, and gathers for a meal. Sitting down together, Jesus begins the Lord’s Supper, the holy meal at which he is both host, and meal: “this is my body; this is my blood.” With him is the one who will betray him; in a great irony Jesus doesn’t identify the man, but instead tells of his future: “woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born!”
Truly, it would have been better for that one to not have been born: better for the thousands of Jews killed through the ages, labelled as ‘betrayers of Christ’; better for all those who through their lives have lived with the label of ‘Judas’. Woe, indeed, to the betrayer, who plays an important part in the story; indeed, Jesus notes that ‘he goes as it is written of him’ – the betrayer is the pivotal point in that story.
Yet that betrayer is also welcome at the meal; the least deserving, the one whom by Jesus will be arrested, beaten, tortured, and killed – that one – he is still welcome at the table, still fed and welcomed by Christ.
We should be so grateful, beloved, that we too are still welcome at the table.
That is the very promise of God – that the least deserving, for those who seem the worst – can come the good news.
Judas, though he betrays, is not one of those who calls out for Christ’s death. That pleasure belongs solely to the crowd who waved their branches. In this story, beloved, may we see our salvation laid out for us: that even though we sin, even though we fail and fall, Christ still welcomes us.
So rejoice. Shout your hosannas! Wave your palm branches. Take and eat, take and drink, the meal that will be set before you.
Come on Maundy Thursday – hear of your Saviour being your servant; let your feet be washed. Take part in the meal again.
Then come on Good Friday, and take your place with the crowd. Feel yourself shout out, giving voice to all your actions and thoughts that every day cry out “crucify him!”.
Then join the feast on Resurrection Day; the feast that is prepared just for you; a foretaste of the everlasting banquet to which you have received your personal invitation: pray and give thanks that you can say ‘yes’ to that.
Let the people of God say amen.
