April 17, 2011 | 4:00 p.m.

Palm Sunday Sermon

Part of the Sermon Series
“Preaching through the Gospel of Mark”

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Mark 11:1–11

It is one of the most well-known stories in the Bible. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey while the people waved palm branches and laid down their cloaks on the road. It is the story of the beginning of his last days on earth. We’re stepping back to that story today in Mark 11; over the past few weeks we’ve talked about things that happened once Jesus arrived in Jerusalem. In those last days he would angrily cleanse the temple of its commercial practices and get himself in trouble talking of the temple’s future destruction. He taught some hard lessons about life and he also reminded his followers to love one another. He warned his friends that following him would be difficult, and he ate a meal with them through which he would offer them strength. And as his trial and death grew near, he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and there we see in him the vulnerability and fear that make it clear beyond doubt that he was fully human even as he was our savior.

Today, before we travel together the road to the cross over the next week, we step back to the story of Palm Sunday; it’s an ambiguous story that leads us into the next week. When I look closely at this story that we traditionally celebrate by waving our palm branches and singing songs, I must admit it’s a little difficult for me to figure out if it’s a celebration or not. The story in Mark 11:1–11 both celebrates Jesus’ ministry and prepares us for his journey to the cross.

• • •

There they were, nearing the city gates of Jerusalem, Jesus along with his disciples. He had said words of warning to them all along, indicating to them that when they got to Jerusalem, there would be trouble; he was confident that he was going to his death. Jesus, their guide and teacher, seemed to have a plan, though they probably thought it a little strange. “Go into the village,” he said, and there you will find a colt; untie it and bring it to me. Like me, you might sense the disciples’ objections: “A colt? A donkey? Jesus, can we not bring you an Arabian stallion, a more battle-worthy animal? You could ride high in the saddle or be pulled in a chariot. If things are going to get difficult in Jerusalem, we could at least make a proper entry.” But they were a poor group; they had little to no money, and so they followed his instructions, untied the colt, and brought it to him. They stacked their cloaks on top of it in an effort to prop him up at least a little higher and make the ride more comfortable.

As Jesus entered the town, a funny thing happened. As unimpressive as he must have looked on that donkey, the people noticed him anyway. They pulled leaves from the trees along the road and waved them in the air. They laid their cloaks down in his path. They shouted “Hosanna,” which means “save us.” For whatever reason, as humble as he looked, they seemed to think that this man could save them, he could help them with the struggles and burdens of their lives.

Martin Luther understood the point of this odd scene. “He sits not upon a proud steed,” Luther wrote, “[not] an animal of war, nor does he come in great pomp and power, but sitting upon an ass, an animal of peace fit only for burden and labor and a help to man. He indicates by this that he comes not to frighten man, nor to drive or crush him, but to help him and to carry his burden for man” (Luther, quoted by William Placher, Mark: Belief Commentary on the Bible, p. 156).

“Hosanna,” the people shouted. “Save us. Save us now.” They somehow knew that this man Jesus could help them. And so we see that in the midst of this apparent celebration, this parade with the palms, there is a clear idea that the people need some saving. They have burdens and worries. They are a suffering people, and they welcome Jesus because they sense that he is there to help them find some light in a world that often seems full of darkness.

When the crowd breaks up and things quiet down, the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem has a poignant ending that often goes unnoticed. Jesus enters the temple and quietly takes a look around, almost as if to collect his thoughts before he enters the week before him. It’s almost as if there’s a suggestion that we should do the same. As we have all done tonight, Jesus comes into a quiet sanctuary and prepares for the week in front of him.

The week before us is the darkest week in the life of Christian faith. This week we remember the way Jesus went to the cross. We watch as the crowd that laid palms at his feet turns into a mob that shouts for his execution. We watch as his disciples desert him one by one to save their own skin, and if we are honest with ourselves, we acknowledge that we too have often deserted Jesus; we ourselves have abandoned God’s call on our lives at times when it seems easier to turn away and take care of ourselves.

It’s absolutely critical for us to take notice of the darkness of the week before us; if we don’t, Easter doesn’t mean much. The story of the empty tomb and the promise of new life where death has taken place is a great story, but it doesn’t have much significance unless we take the time to think about how desperately all of us need a story of newness and rebirth in our lives.

We exist in a world and live lives where many things are not as they should be. Whether we are talking about the tragedies of war and poverty or our personal struggles with jobs or relationships, there are lots of ways in which we don’t get it right here in the world where God has placed us.

It troubles me that sometimes the church isn’t honest about the difficulties of our world. The church often does a disservice to its members because we get overly concerned that you should leave church happy and not upset, so we try, in the midst of this imperfect world, to give you a worship experience that will fill up your cup and put a smile on your face and send you back out into the world really glad that you came to church. We too often tell the ambiguous story of Palm Sunday with bombastic hymns and parades of children and are a little afraid to acknowledge that the Palm Sunday story begins the road to the cross. The problem with doing church that way is that it’s a lie. Life is often hard. And the Bible doesn’t contain easy answers about how to make it better. And a harsh reality about life is that often in order to better understand this world and our own place within it, we have to be willing to endure some difficulty and feel some bad feelings. In church, we need to read the troubling parts of Jesus’ story, sitting with them long enough to feel the pain God feels in the days leading up to the crucifixion. Like a person trying to come to terms with a painful life experience who has to resist coping by drinking or taking drugs or any number of ways of ignoring the problem and numbing the pain, if we want to understand what happens to Jesus on the cross, we have to think about it for a while and live with it long enough for it to hurt.

There’s an important realization about Easter that comes if we are willing to meditate for a while on the pain of the cross. The gift that God gives us on Easter is something none of us deserve. The people who stood on that road to Jerusalem shouting, “Save us, Lord,” needed to be saved, and so do we. And in most cases, the thing we need most to be saved from is our own selves. We are the ones who are often responsible for the ways the world is not as it should be. We are the ones who, with our lying and scheming, our greed and our selfishness, our hunger for power and our love of violence—we are the ones who have created so much of the strife and pain in the world we inhabit. We have taken the gifts God has given us—this world to live in and our very lives—and we have often misused God’s gifts.

It is a difficult world, and there’s little reason why God should do anything to save us from ourselves. And yet God does. Jesus comes along, riding that donkey, absent any of the glory and pretense we so often seek for ourselves. Jesus comes along on that beast of burden, that pack animal that carries the working load, and Jesus goes to the cross to take on the full weight of the injustice and suffering and deception of every person on the roadside today and every person in this room tonight. Not a one of us deserves for God to love us that much, and so it’s that much more amazing to know that God loves us anyway. Jesus does not die that humble death on the cross because you have earned it with all of your good deeds; Jesus dies that death to show you beyond a doubt that even though you don’t deserve it a bit, there is no dark or evil place you will ever go in this life or in the next where God will not be willing to go with you.

There’s much to be gained by a willingness to spend some time in the dark places of Jesus’ story. Once we’ve been there we can appreciate in an entirely different way the brightness and glory of the Easter message, and it’s because of the power of that contrast that we retell the whole story, the darkness as well as the light, every year during Holy Week. Tonight’s service will end with a telling of the dark story of the cross, and until next Sunday, we will share that darkness together. Tonight we will gather at the Communion table for the bread and cup that are reminders of Christ’s presence with us, and then at the end of the service, John and I will read the story of the crucifixion as told in Mark 15; we will read it in its entirety. Lucy will close us with a song, and at the close of the service I invite you to depart in silence.

I pray that in the darkness of this week you will come to a greater understanding of some of the darkness that may exist in your own life, and I pray that you will see that there is no part of your life that is so dark that God cannot dwell there with you. We are not called here to church to bring only the best and brightest and most admirable parts of our lives into God’s presence. We are called here with all of our flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings, and we are promised that you need not hide any of that from God, for God can stand the darkness. God will travel with you through any darkness your life may bring, and God will be there to light your path and support you along the way. And next week we will return to hear of the light Christ brings in the resurrection, light to splinter the darkness in our lives and our world. Thanks be to God. Amen.