“THE PALM THAT TRULY SHIELDS”
Saint Matthew 21. 1-9
Palmarum - The Sixth Sunday in Lent: 20 March Anno Domini 2005
Fr Watson
This familiar Palm Sunday text creates a lot of thoughts and maybe many memories as well. You've all heard it before. Some of you have heard this text 50 or more times read to you in Church, preached upon by many pastors. Does familiarity breed contempt?
It's a festive and historical narrative that "kicks off" Holy Week. It's a poignant beginning to a very deep, profound and passionate story. It's small children of the parish waving palm branches as they process down the center aisle of the nave singing "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna."
It's also a text which appears to be devoid of any explicit "Law."
The Law my friends is that you have to even hear it read. Adam and Eve didn't need to have weekly Gospel pericopes read to them. At least not until they rebelled. Man as God made him didn't need the Bible because man had God in perfect communion. The fact that the Scriptures even exist are a testimony to sin, evil, pride and ego. The fact that many parishioners get bored with a Church that is tied down to repetitive Scriptural exposition of familiar stories is the result of sin. The fact that even some of you look for a pastor to somehow "jazz it all up," i.e. to somehow take a "time-worn" text and give it a fresh, impacting, relevant twist every year is because you're sinners.
The Gospel text for this morning is what it is. It's a story that tells you how Jesus of Nazareth publicly entered the city of His death for the last time. It informs you of what type of people know who He is and of how He will still come to you in 2005; how He will come to you this morning.
The Lord had to go to Jerusalem because of you. Jerusalem which means "city of peace" was anything but. It, like any other city built by man, was a city of war---war against God. It was city filled with sinful and malicious ingrates; like the cities, towns and houses you live in. Not just a good man went to Jerusalem, but PEACE Himself went. First He came to Bethphage, the "house of eating" and then to the Mount of Olives. He would eat down to the last bite your sin; He would drain down to the dregs your trespasses with all their bitter gall. He would be anointed not with olive oil like His son and great king David, but with spit, sweat, swearing and spikes.
He created all the animals from the blue whale and Indian Elephant to the ringed tail lemur and cheetah. He could have ridden on any great and majestic beast for He is the King of them all. He rode on a donkey for several reasons. King David rode a donkey out of Jerusalem because of his own son's murderous treason. Jesus the Crucifix King now rides back into the city to reverse all that parricide horror, including yours, on the same gentle creature. Gentle, unassuming, hardworking, versatile are all words to define the humble ass; but not awesome, powerful, dynamic, sovereign or glorious. No, that's not how the Lord chose to deal with the situation. It's not how He currently chooses to come to you either. The meek donkey, her colt, the foal of a donkey no less, is a "picture" of how the King of Creation will be apprehended by you until Judgment Day. Be not offended. Be not spurned or put off by this scandal, this weakness, this embarrassment. The ass is also fitting because it is stubborn and is used repeatedly in the Old Testament in unflattering comparisons with the Children of Israel's apostasy and whoring after strange gods. This sinful affliction is your lot as well. As the donkey requires the "bit" of the Law to turn it's dull head, so too do you require the Law to smack you when you sit and bray and act like an ass rather than an heir, an animal rather than a royal priest.
The Christ rode in to die because you were already there imprisoned and waiting your own execution. You were fast bound in Satan's chains. The only way the Lord and His Disciples could "loose" you, as they "loosed" the donkey and her colt, was by doing Jesus' Words. Their act of liberating two donkeys, points to the Messiah's atoning act of self sacrifice; His life for yours; His being bound up tightly and then nailed even tighter, so that you would be unbound and free.
The story is your story, as is all of Scripture. The Law is the unwritten "sub-text" that you know in your heart. You know in your heart that because of your sin you don't really know the whole story as well as you should. You know snippets, "sound-bites" (or should we call them "Jesus love me this ALL I KNOW" bites) but you don't read, mark, learn and inwardly digest His Word as you should.
The pastors who were with Jesus, His 12, covered the animals with their clothes, their outer robes and cloaks. That's you. His pastors cover your black hearts and red raw open sores of sin with Jesus' own clothes. You are washed, disinfected, and given sweet balm of healing in cool waters of baptism. You are given His myrrh-drenched and lily-fragrant white robes to wear as your own. You are no longer simple donkeys, but His new-born creatures because you wear Him.
Palm branches can give shade from a burning son; and when they are waved they can give a breeze to cool one from heat and sweat. But first they must be cut down, ripped from the living tree, giving up their life, if you will, to be of service to man.
The Lord, the maker of all trees, is your eternal palm branch. Jesus was cut down with whips, back-hands, thorns and nails. He is the ultimate "wave" offering to propitiate, satisfy, the wrathful anger of God against your sins of malice and your sins of indifference.
The big bloody Crucifix is your palm fan. It shields you from the blazing son of payback for sin, it fans you with the breeze of Redemption: blood, water, words of forgiveness and restoration.
This precious palm is stretched out and lifted high on a hill to be your shade, your peace that passes understanding.
He rides in to the city to be lifted high so that you might always have the joy to sing to Him, and with Him, Hosanna in the highest.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost