March 20 Sermon: Crying Stones

Consider these questions as you listen to this message on Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 and Luke 19:28-40:

1. What was the crowd's expectation of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and how did their expectations differ from the true mission of Jesus?

2. How does Psalm 118 play a significant role in understanding the circumstances surrounding Palm Sunday, and how does it relate to the anticipation of the Messiah among the Jewish people?

3. The sermon highlights the contrast between the Christ the crowd wanted (a conquering hero) and the Christ that Jesus truly was (the Lamb of God). How can this contrast be applied to our own expectations of Jesus and the message of the Gospel today?

Transcript:

What was the mission of Jesus? This is a question that comes to us front and center as we think about Palm Sunday and continue our journey to Easter. In both lessons this morning we see the expectation of a coming king yet we need to ask an important question. Was Jesus the type of king the people were looking for as he entered Jerusalem? That should also prompt a question within ourselves. As we embark towards Good Friday and Easter what are we expecting Jesus to be? What kind of a king are we looking for?

Our Old Testament lesson this morning from the book of Psalms is very important in our understanding of the circumstances surrounding Palm Sunday. It helps us to grasp how this Psalm was used by the Hebrews if we look at it with an understanding that this Psalm was a call and response. There are two voices at work as we read it and if you look at it you can see it pretty clearly in verses 1 and 2. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. Let Israel say: His love endures forever. This Psalm was to be used in community. Another important part of understanding this Psalm is that it is last in a series of Psalms that is associated with the celebration of Passover. The crowd that greets Jesus as he enters the city on Palm Sunday includes people who were on a pilgrimage to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. There is an anticipation of this feast and an anticipation of this Psalm that they know so well being on their lips as they remember the salvation of the people from the oppressive hand of the Egyptians. It is also important to understand that in this Psalm one of the main voices we hear is from the king speaking and leading this liturgy. There is a deep sense of expectation as the people would hear this Psalm during Passover. Is the promised King, the messiah, on the way?

With these things in view we can better understand this Psalm and how it relates to our New Testament lesson this morning. There are two significant statements in this Psalm that you may recognize from passages in the gospels. The first is verse 22 "The Stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone". In the original context of ancient Israel, the idea of the stone that was rejected likely referred to the king. He was the representative of the people and when it would seem as if the people of Israel would be defeated the stone would be cast off……but the story doesn't end there as the king is brought low God has other plans. By God’s mighty hand he brings victory and brings the king to the chief and exalted place. This was not only the story of the king though. The people reciting this Psalm as they celebrated the Passover also could not miss how this is the history of Israel. In Egypt, the people of Israel were rejected and were in slavery. They were at their lowest but God had other plans. Through the Passover there was a reversal of fortune. Those who were low, were lifted up. The oppressed were rescued. They were God's chosen people. The cornerstone of the promise that was to lead to a Messiah who was to crush the head of the serpent once and for all. This isn't just the story of Passover but the story of the Hebrews being in the lowest position and then God rescuing them. This is a recurring theme throughout their history. As the people use this Psalm in their worship they are remembering their past, participating in its hope in the present, and looking forward to the future when God will do the same thing once again.

If we jump forward to verse 26 of Psalm 118 we see a phrase that if you have ever been at a Palm Sunday service, you have heard quoted in the New Testament. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. The people are praising God for their King. He is the one that God has chosen for them. The one that will lead them in victory. The one who will be used to deliver them from oppression. Throughout their history there have been those who come in the name of the LORD who have been blessed. Moses, Joshua, and most importantly King David. The king that sat on the throne at the high point of the history of Israel. David, the king who received the promise from God that there would be one of his offspring on the throne forever.

This Psalm is filled with a sense of Messianic expectation and the people know it. When I say "know it" I don't mean that they have the knowledge of it or they have agreed with it on a mental or intellectual level. Most of them would have likely had this memorized. This liturgy that they would have used during the Passover was a deeply imbedded part of who they were. It was what they loved. It was the story of their past and the expectation of their future.

It is with that in mind that we come to our New Testament lesson this morning in the gospel of Luke. As you may have noticed as we have spent quite a bit of time in the gospel of Luke so far this year there are multiple times that Jesus has talked about what is going to happen to him in Jerusalem. When Jesus tells his disciples that he is going there to suffer and die it is like they don’t even hear him. They are unable to see past what they want Jesus to be. They don’t understand who he really is and what he has come to do.

As we come to this point in Luke's gospel we see that people were coming to believe that Jesus was the Messiah……and rightfully so. Who else but the anointed of God could possibly do the things that Jesus has been doing? Teaching with authority, healing the sick, making the lame walk, giving sight to the blind and even raising someone from the dead. What other possible explanation could there be? This has set the Pharisees on edge and the plot to have Jesus put to death is put into motion. The Pharisees are not just upset about people following Jesus or the multiple times that they have thought that what he has spoken is blasphemous. Jesus puts their way of life in great jeopardy. They are worried that the numbers who believe in him will increase and the Roman army will come and destroy them to halt an insurrection. Jesus must not only be stopped because they don’t believe him to be the messiah but because the people believe he is and they are worried that they will lose their favorable status with the Roman government.

So now with the excitement and momentum behind him that our politicians only wish they could incite, Jesus approaches Jerusalem with the thousands upon tens of thousands that are coming for the celebration of the Passover. The Roman historian Josephus estimated that more than a million people came to Jerusalem each year in the decade prior to the temple being destroyed in the year 70 AD. While his estimates may have been high, it conveys to us that were likely hundreds of thousands of people in the area as Jesus comes into Jerusalem. Imagine for a moment the buzz surrounding this Jesus who has done all these amazing things. Their mothers and fathers have taught them that the Messiah, God’s anointed, would be coming and now it is likely that this person who was spoken of by the prophets, is now walking among them.

With all of this in mind we can now come to the text and really understand what the big fuss was about. These people who have been expecting a messiah, are getting one. As Jesus comes into the city they came out to meet him, they threw their cloaks on the ground, and cried out: Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! There it is. Psalm 118 has come back to us. Luke writes it a little different than what we read from Psalm 118 but this was to help his non Jewish readers understand that the Psalm they were quoting was about a king. As we see that the people are quoting this Psalm remember how deeply connected they are to this text. It is a part of who they are. It is a part of their Passover celebration and expectation. They believe this so deeply that the people put their cloaks on the ground because that is what you did for a conquering king who was returning to the city. Now, you may have noticed that we didn't read anything about palms in the text we read from Luke and I haven't mentioned them yet either. In the other gospel accounts, we see that people took palm branches and went out to meet him as he came in. For us that doesn’t mean much and it wouldn't have meant much for the Gentile readers that Luke's gospel was directed to either, which is likely why Luke left that detail out. For us palm branches are something we don’t see unless we go on vacation or we have them shipped in to have children wave on Palm Sunday. For the Jews of this time though palm branches were very significant. The waving of palm branches was connected to a significant military victory a few hundred years prior the events we read about today. When the leader of the conquest returned they had something similar to the parades we have when a team wins a world series or super bowl. Instead of ticker tape, the parade featured the waving of palm branches. The palm branch became so significant as an image of freedom to the Jewish people that in the late 60’s when the Jewish people declared independence from the Roman Empire one of the coins they minted contained a palm branch on it because that was their symbol of victory and freedom.

So this reaction by the crowd and the waving of the palm branches shows that this is just as the Pharisees have feared. The devotion of the people to Jesus is going to upset their order. The Romans will come in and squash this uprising like they have done to all the other uprisings that have happened before.

The people are wanting Jesus to save them. They desperately want him to be this conquering king. But what is it that the people feel they need to be saved from? Are they crying out to be saved because they know they are dead in their trespasses and sins and they need a savior? No. They are crying out for someone to save them from the oppression of the Roman Empire. The truth is that this is not only what the Pharisees had feared would happen it is also what Jesus feared would happen. The people are not crying out to the savior they need. They are crying out for the savior that they want. This is the theme we see throughout the gospels. Jesus often tells the disciples that the people cannot know that he is the messiah. What happens here on Palm Sunday is why. The people did not understand what the messiah had really come to do. Even the disciples had this wrong. The perfect example is Peter. He confesses that Jesus is the messiah and then when Jesus says that he must suffer and die Peter says that he won’t allow that to happen. The mother of James and John wants them to sit on his right and on his left when he comes into his kingdom. She didn’t know that what would usher in the kingdom would be a bloody and brutal execution at the hands of the Romans. The people and the disciples were looking for earthly conquest and earthly glory.

All of this is why Palm Sunday is one of my absolute favorite Sunday's in the church year. This is such a good story. Here we have Jesus coming in to Jerusalem. We know he is the anointed one of God, the messiah. After all we have seen in the stories of the gospels finally…..finally the people are praising Jesus……..but they aren't praising him for the right reason. Coming to this text is really kind of difficult. Usually it is best to read a passage and let it stand on its own. With this passage we really can’t do that, we are forced to deal with the reality that is coming. There is so much drama here. On Sunday, the masses are crying out to Jesus and in only five days they will be crying “crucify him”. The name of Jesus is on their lips as they think he is a king riding in to town to save them but in five days the name on their lips will be Barabbas as they free a criminal insurgent and let the innocent lamb of God go to be slaughtered.

The people seem to miss what the Old Testament had to say about what the Messiah would do. He is pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and despised. This description of what the Messiah would do does not involve national conquest or parades with palms because he has kicked the Romans out. Instead of pointing us to a conquering hero it points us to a savior who is a lamb led to the slaughter.

This shows us why the story we read today ends up the way that it does. The Christ that the crowds wanted was one who gave them what they wanted. The Christ that the crowds wanted was one who gave them their country back. The Christ that the crowds wanted would have gone and displaced the Roman authorities. The Christ that the crowds wanted would have basked in the praise and adoration and given the people the victory they were expecting. The Christ that the crowds wanted wouldn’t have been a Christ at all.

The anointed one of God is a Christ of the cross. He goes willingly not to displace the civil government but instead goes willingly to his execution. He goes there to die as a savior. He goes there to pay the price for my sin and yours. He goes there so that in his death we might receive life.

As we stop and think about what this means for us today it is easy for us to point the finger at the crowds who thought that the purpose of Jesus was to save them from the Romans. The reality of the situation is that we can very easily be guilty of the same thing. It is easy for us to be distracted from the cross. The people on Palm Sunday were not the first or the last people to desire the Christ of the crowd. When we think that we somehow offer something to our own salvation, even a little bit, we are looking to the Christ of the crowd. A Jesus of our own design. When we decide that God is all about our agenda and not what the scriptures tell us we are looking to the Christ of the crowds. It is important that we as Christians understand this distinction. The path to salvation is not glorious conquest. The path to salvation is through the suffering of Christ. The power of God to save came to us not in worldly power but came to us through weakness. On Palm Sunday Jesus did not ride into Jerusalem on a white steed but instead on a lowly colt. He fulfilled the prophecy of what the Messiah would be, instead of fulfilling the desires of the people. He gave them the savior they needed, not the savior they wanted.

As we journey to Easter this week, we look to the cross. Not the cross that is clean but the cross that is covered in the blood of your savior. Remove your hopes of being blessed by God on your own merits and instead trust that all the merit you need is yours in Christ. It is in his perfect life, death, and resurrection that your standing before God is rooted. It is not based on your performance or your reaching out to God. Instead, the story of the gospel is that in Christ, God has reached out to us and willingly went to the cross. For this he is worthy of our praise.

At the end of our New Testament lesson this morning the Pharisees tell Jesus to rebuke those who are praising him. Jesus replies that "If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out". Brothers and sisters let us not be silent. Do not let the stones proclaim the glory of God. We have heard of the salvation that our God has brought to us and we should praise his holy name for his saving work. God is worthy of praise on all accounts. He is mighty, he is powerful, he is majestic but the greatest reason to praise God is that he has saved us from our sins and declared us righteous because of Christ's work on our behalf. May our praises never cease for our great God and king for it is not the job of the stones to praise God. It is our response to his amazing love for us. Amen.