Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Zechariah 9:9-10
Palm Sunday April 9, 2017
In the days when kings actually ruled over lands and people, the beginning of a king’s reign was so exalted and stupendous an event that the greatest composers living at the time would write music just for the occasion. A king ascended his throne to the cheers of his subjects with the triumphant music ringing in his ears. If ever in the history of the world there was cause for a grand celebration, certainly it would be the crowning of the messiah-king and his ascension to his throne. And, that’s probably what the people were thinking on a spring day outside of Jerusalem long ago. They had been longing for the promised messianic king for centuries. They could not wait for the king to come with righteous justice and power to accomplish God’s plan and establish God’s kingdom—with Israel as the favored nation and Jerusalem as the center of the world. And on this day, it seemed like it was all happening at last, as Jesus came down the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem.
The miracles and teaching had persuaded the crowd. They were convinced that Jesus was the promised king. They were certain that he was coming to Jerusalem to use his powers to drive out the Romans and begin his reign over the entire world. Jesus was their man, their king. So, as he rode along they did their best to stage an impromptu coronation. Palm branches and cloaks covered the road, and people lined the shoulders. It wasn’t much, actually. In truth, as coronations go, it was rather feeble. Still they did their best. After all, with no advance notice of Jesus’ arrival, their celebration was necessarily hasty. And besides, they were on their own for this celebration. There was no support from the current leaders of church or state; in fact, those men were less than thrilled with the arrival of Jesus. The last thing they wanted was the coronation of Jesus as king. So, as Jesus rode along, the people were singing their chorus and the leaders were fuming and plotting. None of it seemed to be quite the way that it should have been on the day of the Messiah’s coronation. What happened on the first Palm Sunday was a far cry from the way that it should have been with the arrival of a king.
Of course, the people were right about a lot. Jesus was indeed the messianic king, and he was coming to Jerusalem to establish his kingdom. But the kind of king that he was and the kind of kingdom he had come to establish were nothing like the people thought they were. If the people had realized the true identity of the rider on the donkey, their reaction would have been much different. When Isaiah once got a glimpse of God’s majesty, he was overwhelmed, completely undone. When God appeared to Elijah, the prophet could not look at God’s face, the Lord’s holiness and the prophet’s own sinfulness were all too apparent. The terror of God’s presence was so great that the people had begged Moses to bring it to an end. On Palm Sunday, the same holy omnipotent Lord was arriving in Jerusalem. Had the people realized this, they would have been running for their lives or groveling for mercy.
When the righteous, holy one comes into the midst of what is unrighteous and unholy, there is one outcome: what is unholy is consumed by what is holy. What is unholy cannot exist with what is holy. The people of Israel were eager for the messianic king to come and destroy the heathen Romans. What they failed to realize was that the coming of the king of righteousness and holiness would be equally devastating for them. No sinner can endure his coming. No sinner can sing his welcome. To the holy one, the happy chorus and loud cheers were polluted with sin and so abhorrent. The coming of Jesus, the coming of the divine king, should have been a day of judgment and wrath for all the people of Jerusalem. But, it wasn’t. Things were not working as expected that first Palm Sunday.
Jesus was the holy and righteous Lord, God in human form. But he hadn’t come to Jerusalem to judge and destroy sinners—at least not this time. This time he was coming to be judged by sinners and destroyed for sinners. That Sunday, the people were trying to create a coronation event. They wanted Jesus to know that they were ready for him to be their king. But, he was already the king, the king of righteousness, the king of all creation. Their hopes and dreams for a king weren’t big enough. Their thoughts could not contain or even comprehend the truth about Jesus’ actual majesty. And even if they had grasped the reality, they could never have guessed what Jesus had in mind that day. They were thinking glory and victory over Rome. They wanted Jesus to sweep into the city as conquering king and destroy all that was unrighteous and unholy. Instead, he was plodding into town like victim to be executed. The people intended their songs and palms to be a coronation march. But, it was a death march. Jesus was coming to die. The people did not know it, but Jesus did. The time had come for decisive action. It was time to fulfill the plan: not the plan of a military commander or political leader, but the plan of the eternal savior.
Just five days after the people’s impromptu coronation chorus, the king’s plan reached its climax. The long-planned mission was accomplished. Jesus did exactly what he had come to do. He fulfilled the Father’s purpose. And it was a coronation. The king did receive his crown, and he did ascend his throne. The king was crowned with a wreath of thorns. The king was lifted up on his throne, a Roman cross. There was no royal fanfare, and no triumphant chorus, only the angry shouts and mocking insults of a mob. There were no cheers of praise and honor, only the taunts and jeers of the soldiers and priests. There was no dazzling glory, no sparkling radiance, when Jesus was raised up on his throne. People turned away from the grisly scene, or stood mesmerized, transfixed on the horror before them, unable to look away. Duly crowned and enthroned, the king fulfilled his royal duties: he suffered and died.
Palm Sunday’s entrance was a strange sort of coronation for everyone. For Jesus, it was a death march; the cross had been the plan all along. Of course, that was not the plan of the people. They did not want a king on a cross. But God did. Jesus received the crown and the throne that God had chosen. Jesus received the crown and the throne that he himself had chosen. He knew that it was coming. He knew it even as he rode into the city on that Sunday, on the back of a donkey, thronged by the cheering, singing crowd. The people sang the chorus of coronation; Jesus heard the dirge of death: a strange, broken, chorus, indeed.
That’s what makes today so difficult to define and grasp. We hear the shouts of “Hosanna!” and “Hail to the Son of David!” We hear the music and delight in the glory of the day. We smile to think how it must have been that Sunday long ago on the Mount of Olives. We revel in the scene as we picture it in our minds: all those people, all those palms, all those cloaks lying in the dusty road, and Jesus in the middle of it all. But, then again, it’s still Lent. We’re on the brink of the very depths of our Lord’s humiliation and suffering. Today’s palms will become the ashes of next winter’s Ash Wednesday. The hands that were raised in acclamation and greeting outside Jerusalem will soon be raised in angry fists outside the Palace of Pilate. The voices that sing the “Hosanna chorus” will soon shout, “Crucify!” The march that has the makings of a coronation celebration is in reality the first steps of a funeral procession that will stumble to the cross and finally end in the hushed cold stone of Joseph’s tomb.
This is an odd day. Do we rejoice with the happy, but misled people; do we sing our own hosannas to the King? Or, do we think about what Jesus knows on this day; do we focus on the sense of foreboding that hangs in the air, the unsettling certainty that something tragic is about to happen? The happiness of today must be tempered. The reality is not a crown of gold and a throne of honor. The reality is a crown of thorns and a throne of agony. Jesus rides into Jerusalem not to destroy sinners, but to be destroyed by them. He comes not to blast the unrighteous, but to bless them. It was that way on the first Palm Sunday. It is that way on this Palm Sunday. Things are not quite what was expected.
God’s own Son, the messianic king, should not have had to suffer and die for the unrighteous. Jesus should have come, sword drawn, ready to cut down all who were unrighteous and sinful. But that day in Jerusalem, God’s plan was to deliver grace. That plan continues, today. Jesus is still the holy and righteous one. He is still just; he still hates sin. Jesus comes again, today, but he comes not to blast, but to bless. He comes not with condemnation, but with salvation. He doesn’t come in wrath to obliterate and judge those who are trapped in their sin; he comes eager and ready to give grace to all who will receive it. He comes, today, with a strange and wonderful majesty, and he takes up another unlikely throne—this time, he ascends the throne of your heart and from there he begins to rule and direct your life. This is a remarkable king who is content to reign from a throne as simple and as sinful as a human heart. But that’s the kind of king that he is. He reigns with grace and forgiveness. He makes the unrighteous righteous. He still doesn’t do things the way we would expect a king to do things. He does not march into human hearts and impose his rule. He does not enforce his authority by royal decree and might. Jesus brings his kingdom by grace, extending it to one person at a time through simple trusting faith. He brings his kingdom when he brings grace and gives faith. His kingdom comes when he works faith in his people…in you. And, he reigns in you.
That’s how the king rules today. The day is coming, though, when the king will return to this world with his sword ready. When he comes on that day those who have been called by faith into his kingdom will be welcomed into the coronation celebration that has no end. But those who have rejected his grace and refused to believe will be cut off. On that day, things will be set right, and the chorus of praise will be strange and broken no more. On that day, Jesus the one true king will be crowned in glory and ascend his throne of eternal authority. On that day, by his grace, you and all who live by faith will join him in the celebration. You will march through your own personal coronation ceremony, and the king will give you your own crown of life and with him you will rule creation. It will happen. Jesus has promised it. It will happen because he comes today, not to condemn, but to save. It will happen because he came on Palm Sunday not to destroy but to be destroyed. It will happen because on Good Friday he wore the crown of thorns and ascended the throne of agony. You will celebrate in glory with him because he refused a Palm Sunday coronation and chose a death march instead. He did it so that you can reign with him forever. He did it so that he can reign in your heart, today. Amen.