“The Journey Gets Dangerous” Palm Sunday Matthew 21:1-11; :1-5; :1-2, 11-51 April 13, 2014 Rev. Kelly Love Davis United Methodist Church

In Lent we have been on a journey. Today the journey belongs to , traveling down that road to , greeted by a very large crowd. Today’s leg of the journey is supported and celebrated. A very large crowd gathers – people who apparently love Jesus! They shout Hosanna, they cry out blessings upon Jesus! It is a change of pace from the loneliness of wandering in the wilderness, a brief bright moment before the lonely journey to the cross.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem sounds like a parade, a party, a celebration. And Palm Sunday celebrations in churches often feel something like that too. We go all out with our processing and our Palms and shouting “hosanna”.

But today we also mark the start of Holy Week. This last week in Lent is the dramatic climax, the emotional roller-coaster ride from the joyful celebration of Palm Sunday to the bleak tragedy of the betrayal and .

In my years growing up in church and all through college, Palm Sunday made me feel like Lent was pretty much over. Those hosannas - all that celebration! Then Easter the next week was just a bigger celebration. I never had any sense of the underlying bitterness of Palm Sunday, of how dramatically the tables would turn in the last few days of Jesus’ life.

When I was growing up in the church, my family never went to any kind of worship service in between Palm Sunday and Easter, at least not that I remember. I was an adult the first time I experienced a fuller Holy Week, with services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. I can still remember how much that transformed the experience of Lent and Easter for me. When I first found my way to celebrating Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, I finally had a way to enter fully into the incredible pain and grief of the crucifixion. I felt the apprehension of the Maundy Thursday meal, knowing that Jesus’ betrayal was immanent. One church I worshiped at in Chicago held an all-night vigil on the night of Maundy Thursday. I may have told some of you this story. I attended the Maundy Thursday vigil for the first couple of hours. As the worship leader read the lament of Jesus in scripture asking “will not one of you stay awake with me?”, I quietly slipped out to head home for a good night’s sleep. After all, I had to work the next day. It really drove home the question of whether I might be like all those other disciples, the ones who drifted away from Jesus’ side; the ones who fell asleep.

Every year the reading for Palm Sunday tells the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Each of our gospel writers tells the story just a bit differently. Today we read Matthew’s version.

And what is going on in the Palm Sunday story? Matthew’s version says: “when he entered Jersalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?”

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This is a good question for us to ask ourselves in this season, this week. Who is this? Who is Jesus Christ, to you?

The Palm Sunday story is the story of Jesus’ moment of greatest popularity. And yet we know that Jesus’ popularity was not unanimous. And we know that it did not last. Does the turmoil Matthew describes remind us of what is to come?

When I first participated in the full experience of holy week worship, I felt unsure of myself on Maundy Thursday, wondering whether I too would fail to stay by Jesus’ side. I felt bereft on Good Friday, knowing that they had crucified my Lord and that the world was a bitter, empty place without him. And with that full, rich, emotional experience of Jesus’ Passion, Easter itself became a much fuller, deeper celebration, a profound contrast to the anxiety of Maundy Thursday and the grief of Good Friday.

The church is pretty creative. Worship planners know that many people are probably not going to get out for Holy Week services. So the creative answer has often been to give us two for the price of one, to combine Palm Sunday with the . “The Passion” is the name the church uses to refer to the whole package of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and crucifixion, as we know it through our .

The good thing about Palm Sunday is that it allows us to enter fully into the celebration, to mirror the piece of the gospel story that is those joyful crowds shouting hosanna. The good thing about observing the fullness of the Passion, either on the last Sunday in Lent or throughout Holy Week—the good thing about celebrating the fullness of the Passion is that it reminds us of the whole story. It refreshes our memories of the agonizing journey that will take place throughout the week. If we miss the whole story, if we go directly from the Palm Sunday joy of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to the Easter joy of the resurrection, we run the risk of misrepresenting the gospel.

What does the whole Holy Week story say to us—this story that begins with adoration and ends in a cry for blood? What turns triumph into tragedy? How do we come to terms with the human heart’s equal capability for both love and hate?

The full holy week story shines a spotlight on the human tendency to be fickle. We have it in us to be unreliable. Changeable. Today’s crowd may or may not be the same people who will call out “crucify him!” at the end of this week. But even the disciples are fickle, as their fears move them to betray him, to leave his side, to deny him.

I opened this sermon by saying that today the journey belongs to Jesus – because the Palm Sunday story is the story of Jesus’ journey into Jerusalem. But it is also our journey. Our stories are a part of the larger story of how God works in the world, and of God’s invitation to each one of us to be a part of that. We honor the biblical story and know that part of what it does is to hold up a mirror in front of us, a mirror that invites us to look at our own faithfulness and sin.

I hope you’ll be here for our Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services. Both are at 7:30 in the evening. But whether you make it to those services or you don’t, remember the tension in this Palm Sunday celebration. Search your own hearts for a way to understand Jesus’ crucifixion. Allow yourself some time to sit with the weight of that violent, painful death. And ask yourself, as Matthew’s gospel asks: “who is this?” Who is Jesus to me? What does it mean to me to call 3

Jesus “the Christ”? Take some time to sit with the weight of this week and the questions that face us.

And then? We return to the tomb on Easter morning. Amen.