Palm
Sunday 2015
Father Adam Trambley
March 29, 2015 St.John’s Sharon
Often we come to church and the liturgy is focused on giving
a sense of peace. We feel better as we
experience the music and the readings and the Eucharist. On Palm Sunday, however, the liturgy has many
profound elements, but some of them can make us decidedly uncomfortable. One of those very uncomfortable moments in
the liturgy comes as we read the passion narrative and come to the part where
we all have to say “Crucify him,” and we have to say it more than once.
I don’t know anybody who likes having to read that
line. I know many people, including
myself, who at various times have not said those words, or said them softly, or
maybe changed the line and whispered “Let him go” instead. Yet coming to church on Palm Sunday or Good
Friday and reciting these words is important.
Shouting “Crucify Him” in liturgy forces us to acknowledge in a very
visceral way our own participation in the death of Jesus.
We all have a hand in the crucifixion, because when Jesus
comes right up close to us as Son of God, we have only two choices: to worship,
follow and obey him, or to kill him and set ourselves up in his place as gods
of our lives. The Palm Sunday journey is
the journey to realize that we have only those two alternatives, and to be
forced to choose one or the other.
Everything seems OK when we start out, just like it did for
the inhabitants of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
Jesus was coming into to town, but he wasn’t here yet. The Messiah was entering the Holy City on a
donkey, but he wasn’t cleansing the temple or causing any trouble. The Son of God was coming to set things
right, but everyone could still believe that he was going to set things right
the way they thought he should.
We can think that way, as well, as long as we are looking at
God from a distance and not being confronted by the demands of the King we are
so busy waving palm branches for. We can
believe that he will reward us when we are good, and look away when we are
bad. We can expect him to bless us when
we are generous and be understanding when we aren’t. We can look for warmth and comfort and to be
heard when we take the time to pray and still given everything we need when we
don’t. We can anticipate coming out to
celebrate God’s powerful victories on our behalf when convenient for us, sure
that when we have other priorities, God will still be undertaking whatever
significant work needs to be done. We
can continue to pretend as we wave our palms that the world can be redeemed,
sins forgiven, and souls saved with no significant cost or sacrifice, at least
not to ourselves. Such is the joy of
being in the Palm Sunday crowds, excited that God’s anointed is coming.
But our liturgy continues from Jesus’ triumphal entry into
Jerusalem to the night in the garden where he was betrayed to the next day when
the crowds, stirred up by the religious leaders, shouted, “Crucify him.” And we shout along with him.
We shout with words today because so often we shout it with
our lives. Like the crowds who welcomed
Jesus into the city, we realize, sometimes too late, what we have done by
welcoming Jesus into our hearts and lives.
We have allowed him to make demands on us that we don’t always want to
have made. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Turn the other cheek. Don’t look with lust in your heart. Sell all you have and give to the poor. Go baptize all nations and teach them all that
Jesus commanded. Husbands and wives be
subject to one another, and children to their parents. Pray, fast and give alms. Do not neglect to meet together and encourage
one another. Sing hymns, psalms and
spiritual songs. Let the same mind be in
you that was in Christ Jesus who emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
and humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death. Did anybody really think they were signing
onto all this when they decided to pick up their palm branches? The Jerusalem crowds certainly didn’t –
that’s why they can be led astray.
Now I know somebody here is thinking, “Isn’t there something
between obedience and crucifixion? How about I just take the cross of the wall
and stick it in a drawer and then go sin for a while? Doesn’t ‘Send Jesus out
for a walk’ sound better than ‘crucify him’?”
Sort of like the old days when certain priests would smoke, but only
after they took off their collar.
Fortunately for us, Jesus doesn’t stay locked in a drawer or
out for a walk. Once we have invited the
Son of God into our life, he holds us and loves us and does everything in his
power, including having died for us, to bring us to the fullness of eternal
life. Since the eternal life of Jesus
has no place for sin or addictions or resentments or idolatries or any of the
other fear and hatred based activities we too often engage in, we find
ourselves unable both to let Jesus hang around and to ignore what he teaches
us. So we have to crucify him. Just like Jesus remained a threat to the
political and religious programs of the Jerusalem leaders as long as he hung
around, Jesus remains a huge threat to any of our sins and failings that we
would like to commit. We might wish that
there were a less drastic way. We might
really wish that Jesus would just get with the program and do what we want
before it’s too late. And we almost
certainly hope that we don’t have to be really aware of the consequences of
what we too often do. But as we read the
passion today, we are forced to face the unpleasant facts that some parts of us
continue to cry “Crucify him” instead of simply following him.
The good news, of course, is that this does bother us. We don’t want to crucify Jesus. We want to do what he commands, even when we
fall short, even when we are afraid, even when we can’t manage to do so. That good part of us that strives for the
Kingdom of God is what we strengthen as we read the passion and it is where we
gain wisdom and insight in our own discomfort as we read it. And that good part of us cooperates with
Jesus as he overcomes the power of sin and death in our lives.
Because – spoiler alert – Jesus doesn’t stay crucified. To
get the rest of the story, you’ll need to come back next week, but Jesus
doesn’t stay dead when the Jerusalem crowds shout crucify him and the Romans
soldiers carry out that command. Our own
sinful lives aren’t effective at keeping Jesus dead either, and the Lord of
life is continually calling us to follow him.
But on occasion it is helpful for us to stop and confront our own
failure to recognize Jesus as the Lord of our life. The Palm Sunday passion reading is one of
those times. Today, in church, with our lips, we shout “Crucify him,” in the
hopes that tomorrow, outside of church, with our lives, we won’t.
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