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April 9, 2006 Palm Sunday Mark 11:1-11 I have always liked Palm Sunday…partly because Palm Sunday is just different: We start outside with the processional; we have palms to wave all around; the kids are excited; I’m excited! I like Palm Sunday. Also, I like Palm Sunday because it seems that the people in the story have things right (at least in part)…They are caught up in what God is doing! “Hosanna!” they cry out because they finally recognize that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, is God’s chosen one…the Messiah! They are caught up in what God is doing and they recognize that God is bringing something into the world. I like Palm Sunday because their hearts are into it—the people are excited! I was talking with some friends last night and we were trying to come up with what would get people that excited? What would get people “cutting-branches-out-of-the-trees and running-down-the-street-excited?” What would have to happen? Who would have to come to town in order for you to get that excited? One of my friends suggested that maybe Aerosmith would do it for him, but he wasn’t sure. This is kind of a funny parallel, I know, but it just goes to show the magnitude of this Palm Sunday event. Jesus is coming into your town and it is a BIG deal! This leads me to think of another story that I should tell you. When I was in Jr. High, I attended my first ever professional sporting event. We, my friend Greg and I, went into Denver to see this obscure basketball team called the Denver Nuggets who some of you may or may not have heard of. Seeing that it was my first time at a Nuggets game, Greg decided that I needed a little “pep-talking to.” As we were taking our seats in the upper tier, he said, “Josh, see all these people sitting in these rows around us?...Well, you will never see them again, (so don’t worry about what they think about you). Today you are a Denver Nuggets fan, so act like a Denver Nuggets fan!” And then for added emphasis he shouted out, “I’m planning on leaving here today without my vocal chords,” and then, giving me a sheepish grin and pointing into the rafters with both hands, he cried in his loudest voice, “Go Den-ver!” Everything was fine. The people around us didn’t care. In fact I sensed that they enjoyed his enthusiasm, and I believe it freed them up a bit to get into the spirit of the game in their own right. Oh my. So this got me thinking today on Palm Sunday…what would it be like…what would the people in the pews around you do if they saw you going ballistic with your palm branches (waive branches around wildly), care-free, passionately worshiping God with a sporting-event kind of enthusiasm? Cheering for God! Oh my. Can you imagine it? In Denver there is this man who is called The Barrel Man who goes to all of the Broncos games, and has for years and years. This guy, although he must be at least in his seventies, wears no clothes—nothing but his orange barrel—and he shouts who-knows-what into his megaphone game after game. He’s great! The Barrel Man is great—true Bronco fans love him. That’s the vibe I get from Palm Sunday, a Barrel-Man-Vibe! I mean, I know that Lutheranism isn’t typically thought of as being characterized by Christian fanaticism, but we need to recognize that this too is part of our Christian, biblical heritage. So, that is why I like Palm Sunday—the Barrel Man Vibe…and that is also why (like many of you, I’m sure) it makes me slightly uncomfortable… Yet, there is something else about this day that I should mention. I put Sandy, our new Administrative Assistant on the spot this week at our staff meeting when I asked her to give the devotion simply by telling us what Palm Sunday meant to her. Her answer was very good I thought. She said, “Palm Sunday is great because of the excitement of the crowd and the feeling that we are a part of the crowd, but there is also an underlying sadness to Palm Sunday…, because we already know what happens next.” It seems that the crowd’s passionate commitment cannot be relied upon. How quickly today’s “Hosanna” turns into “Crucify Him!” and how quickly do today’s palm branches become Good Friday’s cross—on which Jesus is tortured to death? The end of today’s gospel reading (Mark 11:1-11) is interesting because it is different than the accounts from Matthew, Luke and John. Rather than going straight into the temple and cleansing the temple upon entering Jerusalem, Jesus enters the temple and simply looks around at everything. I think this must actually be the way that it happened because there is no reason to add this to the story and it would be an easy detail to leave out of the other three. Jesus just looked around at everything. For me, it gives me a an interesting image…it reminds me of moving when I was in the fifth grade. My family was moving to Virginia from Colorado and we were moving out of the house that I had grown up in. I remember looking around our empty house after we had removed all the furniture. I remember that I was the last one to leave the house. I remember looking in for the last time as I pulled the locked door shut behind me…for the last time. It was then that I came to the painful realization that the promise of the future was not to be found in the comfort of the past.
There is humility
about this day…Palm Sunday. While there are definitely things that
we can be certain of…that Christ is the Messiah and that God, even
now, is working salvation in the world and amongst us, we still have
no idea how God is going to finally bring it about…and that is a
little bit scary. While we have the promise of the future, we can’t
see clearly what that future will be…until we actually live it. For
Jesus (called the Christ) it meant hanging on a cross…but this is a
story for the rest of the week (and I do encourage you to continue
on this spiritual pilgrimage of worship by coming on Maundy Thursday
and Good Friday and of course Easter Sunday). Jesus is said to have
warned us, however, about getting too far ahead of ourselves. He
said, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries
of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today (Matthew 6:34).
So, for now, we should focus on what we can be certain of—because
today is Palm Sunday. Today you are a Jesus fan, so act like a
Jesus fan! Jesus Christ is Lord and Messiah, and even now, God
is working out our salvation. This is the message of Palm Sunday,
bringing us from the past to a future that belongs to him…,but is
for us. For this, let us praise the Lord! Joshua W. Magyar, Pella Lutheran Church 418 W. Main Street Sidney, MT 59270
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