Hosanna!

Eric Lemonholm

April 17, 2011

Palm Sunday A

Isaiah 50:4–9a ; Psalm 31:9–16; Philippians 2:5–11; Matthew 26:14—27:66; Matthew 21:1-11

Today is the beginning of Holy Week.

Today, we celebrate Palm Sunday.

For us, Holy Week is a journey to undertake, following Jesus as we remember the events of his last earthly week.

It is important not to skip from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, and miss out on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

During this week, Jesus goes from the parade of Palm Sunday, to his last supper with his disciples, to the passion – his death on the cross, and finally to the empty tomb – his resurrection from the dead.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem.

He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

He is the Son of God.

But he comes to the holy city of Jerusalem, not on a golden chariot or a noble war horse.

Instead, he walks to Jerusalem on foot, and then he rides a donkey into the city.

Jesus is fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Jesus is a humble King, the Anointed One of God in the flesh as a servant.

That is what Paul’s message in Philippians 2 is about:

Let the 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 exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.

Now, in the original Greek, there is no “though” in this passage. It is better translated, “Because he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.”[ii]

Because Christ Jesus is the Son of God, he “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”

Because Jesus of Nazareth is the Word of God made flesh, “he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.”

Christ our Lord emptied himself of his divine glory and power to be God with us as One of us, as a Galilean Jewish carpenter.

But this incarnation of God, God in the flesh, is the result of God’s nature as the God of love. God chooses to become Immanuel, God with us, to save us.

As Jurgen Moltmann writes,

God “withdraws himself from himself to himself” in order to make creation possible. His creative activity outwards is preceded by this humble, divine self-restriction. In this sense, God’s self-humiliation does not begin merely with creation, inasmuch as God commits himself to this world; it begins beforehand and is the presupposition that makes creation possible. God’s creative love is grounded in his humble, self-humiliating love. This self-restricting love is the beginning of that self-emptying of God which Philippians 2 sees as the divine mystery of the Messiah. Even in order to create heaven and earth, God emptied himself of his all-plenishing omnipotence, and as Creator took upon himself the form of a servant.[iii]

Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.

For the sake of us and all creation, Christ Jesus emptied himself of his divine nature, and became one of us.

And the people of Jerusalem rejoiced. As Jesus rode that humble donkey into the city:

A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

The Son of God was entering Jerusalem.

Jesus was on the road to the cross, where he would give himself up to death for our sake on Good Friday.

The political, economic, and religious powers of this world crucified Jesus the Christ.

In the wake of the protests against tyrants in the Middle East and the violent responses from tyrants like Qaddafi, we can see more clearly why Jesus was executed, from a human perspective.

In the midst of the Passover celebration, when Jerusalem was crammed with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, Jesus enters the Roman occupied city in a royal parade, with the people shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

 

He enters the crowded Temple grounds and starts a riot by overturning the money changers’ tables.

While Pilate seems to be reluctant to sentence Jesus to death, we know from history that he had no qualms about executing any Jew who threatened Roman rule in Jerusalem.

Pilate ruled Judea with an iron fist.

No one who stirred up the crowds in Jerusalem during Passover would escape Pilate’s wrath.

When we see Pilate bending to the will of the crowd, we need to realize that this was a handpicked and manipulated crowd.

Matthew tells us that “the chief priests and the elders,” wealthy leaders put in power by the occupying Romans, “persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus killed” (Mt. 27:20).

The crowd did not represent the average Jewish person in Jerusalem. The common people by and large supported Jesus. In fact, they protected Jesus from the authorities.

Matthew records this about the chief priests and Pharisees in Matthew 21:46: “They wanted to arrest [Jesus], but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.”

Jesus was not afraid of the people: the leaders were.

It was not the Jewish people who crucified Jesus: it was the Romans and their handpicked supporters in an occupied land.

The crucifixion is what happens when One who is in the very form of God is born into the world.

The powers of this world rage against him.

He is a threat to commerce and an oppressive order.

And, of course, Jesus’ death on a cross is not the end.

Even though it’s Passion Sunday, Paul gives us a preview of Easter Sunday at the end of the hymn from Philippians:

And being found in human form,
[Jesus] humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

The powers of this world crucify Jesus, but they cannot keep Jesus in the tomb.

Amen.