To see a video of this sermon at Christ Presbyterian Church, click here.
Each Gospel writer tells the story of this day in a little different way, but they all involve cheering crowds as Jesus rides a donkey down into the city of Jerusalem. There is so much excitement, so much hope. We join in the words “Hosanna” as palms wave among us. We think of it as a great cheer.
But actually, “Hosanna” is more than a cheer.
The Hebrew roots of the word go back to Psalm 118 and mean “please deliver us.” There were lots of expectations being put on Jesus by the crowd that day. They had heard the stories of how he healed people’s bodies and their spirits, how he restored the alienated back to the community, how he proclaimed the good news of God’s love. He indeed was coming in the name of God.
There were a lot more people in Jerusalem that day than just the crowd cheering on Jesus. It was the season of Passover and people came from all over the known world to be in Jerusalem, to come to the temple. And Jerusalem - whose name emerged from words meaning the abode of peace, - was anything but peaceful, then or now.
According to historians, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. It is divided today between Israelis and Palestinians, reflecting the deep divisions throughout that land.
Our reading today ended with these words: “When he entered, the whole city was in turmoil.” The Gospel according to Mark has him briefly entering the Temple, foreshadowing the turning over of the money-changers tables in the days ahead.
In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus after he enters Jerusalem, he calls it “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.” He wants to gather it like a hen gathers her brood under her wings.
In the midst of the turmoil, in the midst of generations of conflict past, present and to come, he held out hope for the city, hope for a humanity often torn by conflict that is fueled by hatred.
He entered in triumph but he was worried about the future – for humanity, for the city, for himself. And seeing beyond this week, he had glimpses of the brightness that would come with Easter.
I think we tend to group all of the crowds in the various stories of Holy Week into one undifferentiated mass. I don’t think that is fair to this crowd on Palm Sunday.
Look, we say, by the end of the week, they had turned on him, calling for his crucifixion. Yet there were so many people in Jerusalem, it is quite possible there were some very distinct crowds.
Think of demonstrations we see in our nation’s capital – one day it is anti-abortion protesters, the next day it is pro-choice advocates. They are hardly the same crowd of people.
Besides, there are other traditions in Jerusalem during the Passover season that maybe offer us a key into how we might look at the crowds, the temple, the tensions - and find a way into the future.
Rabbi Sharon Brous, a wonderful voice who stands at the intersection of faith and justice in our country, tells of one of those traditions in her new book, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World.
She discovered it in what she described as “a Rabbinic teaching buried deep in a third-century Jewish legal compendium.” It is mostly about the measurements of the temple in Jerusalem finished in the century just before Jesus by Herod the Great – the one who was ruler of Judea when Jesus was born. But there is this one brief section that describes what the pilgrims to Jerusalem did when they arrived at the temple.
It's short. Here are the actual words from what is known as the Mishna Middot (mid’- dot)
“All who entered the Temple Mount entered by the right and went round [to the right] and went out by the left, save for one to whom something had happened, who entered and went round to the left.
“[He was asked]: ‘Why do you go round to the left?’ [If he answered] ‘Because I am a mourner,’ [they said to him], ‘May He who dwells in this house comfort you.’
“[If he answered] ‘Because I am excommunicated’ [they said]: ‘May He who dwells in this house inspire them to draw you near again.’ ”
Rabbi Sharon extends that a bit further. When we are hurting, she writes, we step against the current. We know that feeling. In her words, “Every person who passed the brokenhearted would stop and ask, ‘What happened to you?’
“’I lost my mother,’ the bereaved would answer. ‘I miss her so much.’
“Or perhaps, ‘My husband just left.’ Or ‘I found a lump.’ Or ‘Our son is sick.’ Or ‘I just feel so lost.’”
“And those who walked from right to left – each one of them – would look into the eyes of the ill, the bereft, and the bereaved. ‘May God comfort you,’ they would say, one by one. ‘May you be wrapped in the embrace of this community.’”
What a great image. What a great reality for the people who came to the Temple. What a great reminder for us when we encounter someone in the midst of difficulties.
“What is happening to you?” we might ask. “Why does your heart ache?” And then we listen. And we let them know that the community is around them.
Rabbi Chai Levy from a Jewish congregation in Berkeley wrote of this ritual: “The rabbis understood that those who experienced suffering or loss, those who have been shunned, and caregivers to the sick needed some emotional support.”
And he asks: “How might we apply this idea to this time? How might we create similar ways to give and receive compassion and support and to acknowledge the grief, the losses, and the mental health crises experienced by so many this past year?”
And I might add, how can we amplify our hosannas – that plea for God to deliver us – to embrace those around us?
As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowd was with him. They knew that he had restored the alienated back to the community. There were people with him throughout the week to come. They were looking out for him as well.
They gathered with him at table, prayed with him in the garden. Simon from the North African city of Cyrene helped Jesus carry the cross. Luke writes in his Gospel that as Jesus and Simon went up the hill with the cross, “A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him.”
Even as he was hanging on the cross, his closest followers were below and a criminal on the cross next to him reached out in admiration. And one of the Pharisees – Joseph of Arimathea – provided the place for Jesus’ burial.
When we are hurting, we need a community around us. So many of you here know that, you have experienced it. So many of you here have been that community for people who need someone to care about them in the midst of hard times.
I surely know how important it has been to me. Whether it was disorientation from a broken relationship, support during a time of financial hardship, care in the midst of a health issue or embraces during times of grief, it was the community that sustained me. It was the people walking to the right that noticed I was walking to the left.
When I think about Palm Sunday, about Jesus riding into Jerusalem, I think about it as the beginning of Holy Week. That’s a pretty common way to approach it. But I think the story takes us beyond the next seven days.
I think the stories of Jesus, the stories of the people circling around the Temple, the stories of Jesus’ friends caring for him even as he cared for them, the willingness of Jesus to put his life on the line to challenge injustice all become invitations to us for our future.
We called our sermon series this Lent “come and see,” picking up on that phrase that occurs so often in the Gospels. Sometimes it was Jesus inviting people to see what he has to offer. Other times, people he encountered invited the ones they know to come and see Jesus.
Our quest for Jesus does not end with Easter. And that’s why we end the series today thinking about what we are invited to do in the future.
It starts with each of us, of course. We have pondered how we might follow Jesus, what the risks are in doing that, how we seek justice and truth, where we might find healing. I hope there have been glimmers of insight for you on this journey.
But thinking about the future also involves us as a congregation. We spent a lot of time last year crafting a vision of who we are and the values that we hold.
We say that “Christ Presbyterian Church envisions a world that is loving and inclusive. We unite with God to be a worshiping community without barriers, a sanctuary for all. We seek to follow Jesus by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.”
We say that the things we value are
- extending God’s love,
- holding doubt plus faith together,
- working to create a beloved community out of the diversity of thought, worship and experience among us,
- tending to our spiritual health,
- working for a more just world and
- caring for the earth on which we and our descendants live.
Let me suggest that the work we as a congregation have done on this is our invitation to the future.
It is something we can continue to celebrate on a day like this with joyful music and vibrant palm branches.
It is an invitation that we can carry with us through this week that has the hardest stories of Jesus’ life and that we can carry together in the hardest times in our lives.
And just as on Palm Sunday, Jesus got glimpses of the rising sun beyond Good Friday, we can put our trust in God’s love, in the Jesus as the Light of the World, in the Holy Spirit as energizing force that connects us all.
“Please deliver us,” the people cried out as Jesus rode by.
“Why does your heart ache?” the people in the Temple asked those passing by in sorrow.
“May you be wrapped in the embrace of this community,” they hear in the midst of their sorrow.
I will gather you like a hen gathers her brood under her wings, Jesus tells us all.
May it be so. May it be so.
