"Connecting the Dots"

Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – April 1, 2012

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Mark 11:1-11

PALM SUNDAY

    Palm Sunday has always been a curiosity for many of us.  Some of us may have difficulty wondering what message we can take home with us this morning and use during the week. What was Jesus doing by entering Jerusalem in this fashion?  What message was he sending to the people that cared enough to witness this very brief event? Can we connect the dots so that Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem helps to refine our own faith walk?

    There are a number of Biblical scholars that have theorized that Jesus was not trying to establish a new religion. Their claim is that he was trying to purify Judaism i.e., bring their understanding more in line with their ancestors.  Centuries of beliefs had caused the Jews to lose their way. Quite literally, Jesus entered Jerusalem to change the way the Jews thought about the nature of God.  

    Consider the timing of his entrance. This episode took place during the Passover celebration, a time when there were two and one half million people in Jerusalem.  Most of them were looking forward to being reunited with their families.  These gatherings were elaborate, fabulous parties that were connected to their preparations for the Passover meal.  Most of them had never heard of Jesus or his group of twelve disciples.

    Everyone was well-acquainted with the power of Rome and they had not come to Jerusalem with the idea of experiencing the coming of the Messiah.  With a quarter million lambs being slaughtered for the Passover celebration, Jews had come from all over the Roman Empire for the party and to relax from the cares of their world as they once again rehearsed the events that led to their exodus from Egypt. This celebration had everything to do with their past and not their present circumstances.

    The Jews had drifted from their heritage in several ways.   First, the Jews had become less careful of what they were passing on to their children.  We can best understand this by reviewing what we do during Christmas and Easter.  In fact, we Christians have a term we use for those that attend church only on religious observances. We call them C & E Christians!  Even Christians that are very faithful in their church attendance often become so caught up in the pageantry of our seasonal holidays that they give only a token glance to their sacred significance. 

    Like the Jews, our celebrations have little to do with the birth and resurrection of Jesus. His birth, for example, is filled with decorated Christmas trees, wreaths, singing many secular Christmas carols, children having their pictures taken while sitting on Santa’s lap, giving and receiving gifts and exchanging cards.  We hear people ask, “Whatever happened to Christ that used to be in Christmas?” 

    The resurrection of Jesus would not be complete without including an Easter egg hunt, Easter baskets filled with chocolate and marshmallow bunnies and jelly beans placed in a nest of cellophane grass. Of course, we would be remiss if we overlooked the Good Friday practice of kite flying in Bermuda.  Even the name Easter was borrowed by Christians from the great mother goddess of fertility celebrated during the dawn of spring time.  She was honored each spring by the Saxons living in Northern Europe.  

    Those in charge of the family gatherings on these special days may even skip attending church because of the meal they are preparing for out-of-town family, students returning from universities and friends that will all gather around the table at some appointed time.  The Jews were no different 2,000 years ago. The party connected to the Passover meal was the main event. 

    However, the Jews also knew very well the tradition of a coming Messiah, but certainly what Jesus did was not any grand entrance that might signal that a change in government was at hand. He had no army.  This parade had all the trappings of an earlier historical event, but it delivered nothing of substance.  At the conclusion of Jesus’ entrance, most of the curiosity-seekers drifted back to their parties.

    Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem is part of our religious heritage because it was the prelude to a week that we call “Holy” when it was everything but Holy.  If Jesus really was trying to purify the faith of his ancestors, what else was being communicated by his entrance? 

    To recognize the Jews second departure from their heritage, listen again to one of the ancient memories that the Jews had from the prophet Zechariah: 

Rejoice, rejoice, people of Zion!  Shout for joy, you people of Jerusalem!  Look, your king is coming to you!  He comes triumphant and victorious, but humble and riding on a donkey – on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9)

    The pageantry that Jesus used as he entered the city brought back memories of when Judas Maccabaeus defeated the forces of a Syrian king in 163 B.C.  He and his militia drove the king’s army out of Palestine. 

    This king, Antiocheius, had made it his mission to abolish the Jewish faith and replace it with Greek thought and religion.  This king even declared that if any Jew circumcised a child, he would be put to death.  In fact, Psalm 118 that Camryn Swan read this morning commemorates this conquest when the Temple was purified.  Their Holy City was once again restored.

    The part that grew dim in the remembrances by the Jews is described by the words that Zechariah wrote next:   

The Lord says, “I will remove the war chariots from Israel and take the horses from Jerusalem; the bows used in battle will be destroyed.  Your king will make peace among the nations; he will rule from sea to sea, from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.”  (Zechariah 9:10)

    This second departure from tradition happened because the Jews were looking for a political Messiah. What had been frustrating to them for centuries was that God had not delivered one. No Messiah had come.  Jesus was communicating by his entrance that no Messiah was ever going to come with the military/political profile that they expected. 

    Last week I mentioned that if God had a problem, it would be in communicating to physical beings about the spiritual dimension of life that is virtually impossible to describe in material terms.  Outsiders can only see the results from those whose lives are inspired and energized from being in touch with this invisible dimension.

    For example, God did absolutely nothing to save Joseph when he had been sold into slavery.  What saved Joseph from thoughts that would have discouraged most people was his absolute faith and trust that God was with him.  Think of his life during all those years when nothing made sense – his separation from his family, his life as a slave, his imprisonment for years on false charges and his being forgotten by one whose dream he had accurately interpreted.

    When young David faced Goliath, God did nothing to save David.  David’s total confidence that God was with him allowed him to speak with authority when he said, “You are coming against me with a sword, spear and a javelin but I come to you in the name of the God of Israel whose armies you have defied.”  (I Samuel: 45) 

    For the Jews, the Passover had become a time when they celebrated a different kind of God, one that said:

I plan to go through the land of Egypt, killing every first-born male, both human and animal and punishing all the gods of Egypt.  I am the Lord.  By smearing the blood of a lamb on your doorposts, I will see that blood and pass over your dwellings. I will not harm you when I punish the Egyptians.  You must celebrate this day as a religious festival to remind yourselves of what I, the Lord, have done.  Celebrate it for all time to come.  (Exodus 12:12f) 

    The Jews had been conditioned for centuries to think of God as one who fights for his chosen people and destroys their enemies.  (2 Kings 19:35-36)  Their beliefs were centered on a warrior-god that could destroy the Roman legions in much the same manner as it was recorded that God had done to the Egyptian charioteers as they pursued the escaping Israelites through the sea.  (Exodus 14:28f)

    Jesus taught something very different when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within you. It will not come in the way you might expect.” (Luke 17:21)  Jesus did everything he knew to convince his listeners that the Kingdom was already here but there were few people that understood.  Even the most brilliant found Jesus’ teaching too abstract to grasp.  (John 3:10) 

    For whatever reason, many Christians have assumed a similar view used by the ancient Jews.  A number of Christians are waiting and longing for the second coming of Christ.  Why do so many Christians believe that Jesus’ first coming was not enough?  What about Jesus’ ministry was insufficient?  It is as if we believe that there is something more that God needs to do.  Some of the faithful even want to be removed from our planet in bodily form.  Is this what Jesus called his listeners to do? 

    What can we take away from Palm Sunday that we can use everyday? Can we connect the dots?  The question we need to ask ourselves is do we still need a savior or have we shifted to a consciousness that God is with us always even until the end of time?  This was the faith of the ancestors who fashioned Judaism. 

    How many times, for example, do we find ourselves praying to God that we might have a safe flight? How many times are we asking God to be with us during some difficult moment?  How many times do we ask God to help with some problem at the office?  Most of us are unaware that many of our prayers are born from fear that God is not with us and not from our faith and trust that we are right where we need to be to make a difference. God never takes a vacation from being with us every day.

    Jesus gave his life to call people away from desiring the image of a savior-God that delivered Israel from Egypt to the loving God that Jesus knew – one that has equipped men and women to create the better world that everyone wants.  

    In essence, Jesus was turning back the clock for the Jews and giving them a different memory of a savior – the remembrance of the prophet Isaiah, who prayed, “Here am I, Lord. Send me.”  His shift was away from the image of a Messiah that murdered innocent Egyptian children to prove a point, to a savior that said, “Let the children come to me, forbid them not, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them.” (Matthew 19:14)

    Sometimes, in our own need to feel saved and protected, we forget that such an approach to God did not work for Jesus.  In the garden Heaven was silent.  No messiah came.  No miracles happened that might have delivered Jesus.  In fact, the only symbol Jesus understood came from the torches that wound serpentine up the hill carried by men who were coming to arrest him. 

    We forget that every disciple, but John, suffered a martyr’s death.  We forget that the early followers of the way of Jesus clung to their faith as Nero had them martyred in the coliseum in Rome. It was Emperor Constantine that put an end to the slaughter of Christians.   Connecting the dots means that being with God and God being with us is what living in the Kingdom of God is like.  Being there has nothing to do with what is happening in our environment.   Joseph demonstrated this and so did Jesus.   

    If we connect the dots by applying Jesus’ message to ourselves, we move away from defining God as a being that discriminates, intervenes and micro-manages our lives to an understanding that God empowers us to represent God’s loving presence fearlessly everywhere we go.  Being like Joseph, David, Moses, Sarah, Deborah, Mary, Jesus and his disciples requires fearless faith and trust that with God’s presence, our lives will always be fine just as they are -- unfolding one day at a time.