Sermon by Walter G. Edmonds
Damascus United Methodist Church
Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 11:1-11
Palm Sunday - April 5, 2009
When I was a youth I remember someone approaching me about Jesus riding on a donkey into Jerusalem. The person asked me, “Do you know what song Jesus was singing when someone got up close to him?” Looking a gasped, I waited. The answer came. “I love a parade.” Of course, the response to the joke was to be a laugh. But as I have weathered the years and walked the decades, I have thought again and again about the absolute gross inaccuracy and ridiculous suitability of such a thought, humorous as it was intended to be. Jesus was not a man who needed vane glory. Jesus was not a man who in taking on the servant role, needed any kudos or affirmation for a struggling ego. Jesus was fully capable of choosing the task of suffering for a greater cause for the sake of the One whom he called his abba Father.
It is that journey that Jesus begins on this first day of the week known throughout our history as Palm Sunday. In many ways this week is dominated by Jesus’ silence amid deliberate and focused action. We might simply say, this closing week exhibits Jesus’ unshakable resolve and his deliberate labor to do the work and finish the task. Today we remember Jesus’ command to two of his disciples. With prescribed aforethought, he speaks succinctly, “Go to the village across from you. As soon as you enter, you’ll find a colt tethered, one that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it. If anyone asks, ‘What are you doing?’ simply say, ‘The Master needs him, and will return him right away.’ (The Message, Eugene Peterson, p.1831) It is as though Jesus has reached back to Zachariah 9 and embodied the text of the prophet’s humble king riding on a donkey. “Shout and cheer, Daughter of Zion! Raise the roof, Daughter Jerusalem! Your king is coming! A good king who makes all things right. A humble king riding on a donkey, a mere colt of a donkey. I’ve had it with war- no more chariots in Ephraim, no more war horses in Jerusalem, no more swords and spears, bows and arrows. (This king) will offer peace to the nations, a peaceful rule worldwide, from the four winds to the seven seas.” (The Message, p. 1724)
The disciples go and find a colt tied to a door at the street corner and untie it. Some of those standing there say, “What are you doing untying that colt?” the disciples reply as Jesus instructed, and the people let them alone. They bring the colt to Jesus, spread their coats over it, and he mounts the animal. He begins the walk in silence. The Good Book records no words from our Master as Jesus makes his way into the city. The people welcome him, some spreading their coats on the street, others spreading branches they had cut in the fields. Running ahead and following after, they call out: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” The text of the palm-passion hymn by Henry H. Milman reflects the tone of the procession, “Ride on, ride on in majesty! Hark! All the tribes Hosanna cry; O Savior meek, pursue the road with palms and scattered garments strowed. Ride on, ride on, in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die! O Christ! Thy triumph now begin o’er captive death and conquered sin.”
As the Isaiah passage speaks so pointedly, “I have set my face like flint,” that is to say, “I am unyielding in my earnestness to complete the work of my abba Father. Jesus’ countenance, remembering the homily from February 22, “implies a look of strength, a sense of composure, a feeling of being deeply resolved and assured.”
St. Paul’s greatest Christological paragraph in all his writings, was read today, and has become the words we have put on our lips again and again in this house of worship. Shape them with your lips as you are able as I recite them.
Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped,
But emptied himself, taking a form of a slave,
Being born in human likeness,
He humbled himself and became obedient to death,
Even death on a cross.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him and given him a name
Which is above every name,
So that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,
In heaven, and on earth, and under the earth,
And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
To the glory of God the Father.
These words say it all. From the Greek we have it all. Morphe theos means “fashioned in the same batter as God.” Kenos means to laboriously empty yourself, spend yourself completely to be a thulos, a slave. Schema means process to shape oneself, to deliberately strip away any reservations or impediments, to become kenodoxia, as a common class of people, as a nobody. Jesus, who had it all, including a “daddy” relationship with God, would not harpagmon (ar-pag-mun) in any way “rob” or claim a booty for doing this act for the Father. Jesus was willing to be an obedient vessel to lower himself to the place of even accepting a totally undeserved death, and the most ignoble death on a cross. Such humility cannot be perceived by most of humanity. In many ways it is Jesus alone who introduces such love to the world for the God presence in life.
What we must see on this threshold of the week of Jesus’ willing act of sacrifice on our behalf, is his complete resignation of equality with God. What we must contemplate is that with all of Jesus’ own free will in his humanity, he emptied himself of any divine glories, and stood alone before death. He was not saying to himself, “Look what I’m doing for daddy.” Or, “Am I not being the perfect son?” What our beloved Lord was willing and able to do, was to step out of his perfection, and make a complete offering of himself out of his absolute love for all people. As a slave, nothing for himself. As the Son of Man and the Son of God, everything for restoring all of creation.
That’s where we stand at the end of the parade. We, who have seen is stalwart countenance of perfect resolve, we who have recognized him as the long awaited Messiah, we who have sung our hosannas in the hope of his saving us and all creation, are looking for his perfect sacrifice again. If we are faithful, we will never be disappointed in the perfection of his love. Amen.
