Palm Sunday, 2004:

Palm Sunday is about a tortuous parade that leads ultimately to a place called Golgotha. There we gaze upon three crosses. On two of them the wrong in human life had turned in upon itself, as it does very often. The picture is incomplete without those two crosses. All four of the Gospels speak about the presence of the two crosses that flanked the middle cross. Lies are crucified, but so is truth. Without the middle cross the picture would not be just incomplete, it would be a total human tragedy.

This is the Sunday of the Passion of the Christ. Someday, probably someone will make a movie about it. It will show the brutality, the inhumanity of which we are capable, the degradation that occurs when one culture thinks it is superior to another, the suffering of this form of capital punishment, and blood and gore will be used as the selling point in the story. I want to suggest that just as the picture of Calvary is incomplete without all three crosses, so the Passion of the Christ is not complete if we pay little attention to what occurred before and if we have no intention of struggling with what it means to be the people of the resurrection.

So, what brought us to this day? Why would Jesus enter the holy city to the triumphant shouts of those who were convinced he was the one to restore the fortunes of Israel? Much of what he had done in three short years had pointed to this. Entering Jerusalem was risky. But attempting to save people is always risky. There was a very high probability that the authorities would seek to silence him and yet he literally and figuratively threw his arms around people. Why take the risk?

Jesus knew what people needed most. It was not a conquering king who would bring about a political Camelot. It was not an economic system that valued the labor and need of all. It was not a social system that helped people see and accept their oneness in spite of their differences. No, what people needed most was comfort and compassion. That’s what was needed most. He would gather the broken bits and pieces with a love powerful enough to make it possible for people to withstand anything. It is that same comfort and compassion that Jesus brings on this Palm Sunday, the Sunday of the Passion of the Christ. All we have to do is ask.

Jesus also threw his arms around people to give them courage. Fear robs us of our potential, our resolve to make a difference in the world, our hopes and dreams, and our ability to stand over against the powers and principalities of this world that corrupt and destroy the creation and creatures of God. You remember the story about the fellow who took a shortcut through a pasture on his way home. He looked up to see an angry bull charging full speed at him. The only escape in sight was a tree, but he noticed the nearest limb was ten feet off the ground. The fellow ran for it and made a tremendous leap. He missed it...on the way up, but caught it on the way down. Jesus knew what people needed most. They needed courage to face those fears.

Jesus knew that going to Jerusalem would give us courage to obey his commandments to love God and our neighbor. He knew that going to Jerusalem could lead us to disciplined living, to lives based on sacrifice and service. Going to Jerusalem might help us be unpopular when that would be the right thing to be. It could mean that we might be called the anti-Christ when that meant asking those with a narrow view of the love of God to include others who might think differently than they think. Parading into Jerusalem could mean we would be in the minority of public and private opinion. It could mean to buck the system when the system places profits above people or celebrity before principles, and to ride into our own version of Jerusalem because we have come to see what people truly need.

Finally, Jesus threw his arms around people to give them a challenge. These are tough arms of love that comfort and soothe and hold us close. But they are also the arms that fling us back into a new way of seeing, being, and doing. We are invited to join a new parade. It will be as long and as wide as the love of God. This parade aims to include all the diversity of humanity, in color, hue, political persuasions, ethnic identities, gender, and orientation. If we can’t or won’t join the parade, we should get out of the middle of the road blocking traffic.

Palm Sunday, the Sunday of the Passion of the Christ, is the time to examine our aims, our allegiances, our claims and get in the flow of traffic that is headed to new life. We may need to reverse our priorities so that people are more important than technology and justice is more crucial than profits. The parade begins at the foot of Calvary. There a man on the middle cross hangs dying between two thieves. He endured this for you and for me. He did it to comfort us, to give us courage, and to issue a great challenge. For some, of course, the parade ends at Calvary. For us, it is just beginning. We are loved enough to be allowed to decide whether or not we wish to pick up our placard, get in step with the triumphal music, and join hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm with the great multitude. Amen.