Sermonette: Palm Sunday

This past Sunday, we at First Lutheran celebrated Palm Sunday. In our celebration we reenacted the events of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem by having our children lead the procession of palms. As I reflect on the excitement and enthusiasm of our children, I wonder about those pilgrims who entered the holy city with Jesus, shouting their praises and waving their palms.

In the gospel we call Luke we read that a “whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!’ (Luke 19:37-38). I imagine an amazing, incredible, exciting scene.

Curiously, the Pharisees’ response to the acclamation of the crowd was to say, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop” (Luke 19:39). Why did they want Jesus to silence his disciples? Was it that the teaching they were doing in the temple courtyard was being interrupted? No. Was it that they had headaches and couldn’t stand loud noises? No. So why did they want Jesus to hush the crowd?

The Jewish leadership in Jerusalem and the Roman government had reached an agreement in which the Romans would take care of civil law and the religious leaders would rule in the area of religion. It was a cozy arrangement much like how we speak of as separation of church and state. You see, Jesus’ followers were disturbing the peace. They were talking politics and shouting for a king. It seems that there are always some who refuse to accept the dividing wall between private faith and public life. And Jesus’ disciples kept shouting, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

They refused to play by the carefully worked out rules the Pharisees had created. Jesus’ disciples heard Jesus asking them to prepare his entry into their public lives. They said that this Jesus could break down the dividing walls of hostility, so they wanted to become involved in volatile social issues. They heard Jesus challenge a wealthy man not to be a slave to his money, so they wanted to speak on economic issues. They saw how Jesus insisted that little children show us how to enter the kingdom of God, so they wanted to become involved in public education.

Jesus responded to the Pharisees that no one could not stop such a witness because God was sovereign over all the world. The normal assumption was that the civil leaders held the real power, and they permitted an area of religious authority. The gospel proclaimed the opposite. That which could really affect change, that to which even the kings of the world would bow, that to which even nature was obedient was God, whose voice Jesus’ disciples expressed. And if they were somehow silenced, then nature itself, even stones, would shout it out.

And I wonder if we might join our voices to those of the multitude of disciples and proclaim so all could hear that Jesus is our king, indeed? Might we proclaim with great enthusiasm that Jesus is the One who comes in the name of almighty God to bring peace to all creation? Might we join those who would not stop praising Jesus no matter what? Might we? Glory be to God!