“PALM SUNDAY”
Saint Matthew 21: 1-9
Palmarum: 2 April Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Most people, normal people, love parades. There was a parade of sorts today as The Holy Spirit marched you into this parish—this nave. There will be another Godly procession when you approach Christ’s Holy Table; Altar, to receive the greatest gift this side of Final Judgment.
Believe firmly, hold on and grasp the reality, that THIS place, right here, is nigh unto Jerusalem. This is Bethphage, the “house of eating,” this communion rail is the mount of Olives where you are anointed again in your Baptismal + Washing with the water and Blood flowing from Emmanuel’s veins.
The Lord’s disciples went, at His command, and brought a donkey and her young colt. A disciple this morning, a pastor in the stead and by the command of Christ, has brought the elder—The Hebrew Old Testament (Zechariah) and the young colt of the Greek New Testament (Saint Matthew’s Evangel) for service unto Him. The two disciples had the beasts “loose(d)” true. But the Greek which St. Matthew used is also a theological term of art: “luo” to loose as in also freeing, liberating, redeeming, setting the captive prisoner free; forgiving sins!
In The Holy + Absolution you have been “loosed.”
Everything Jesus is doing this morning is for you. It all fulfills what He Himself spoke through the mouth and pen of The Prophet: you, you Daughter of Zion, behold, your King comes to you, meek, and sitting on a Paten/Ciborium, and a Chalice!
As the “12” put their own robes and outer cloaks upon the two donkeys that their Lord might sit more comfortably, the crowd also spread clothes on the path. The first act is poignantly and emotionally somber in that the Disciples did not know that their Master would be stripped of His own clothes to be humiliated, scourged, and crucified on rough wood. All of The Lord’s suffering and pain; His ignoble death, would be so that they, the “12” and you the Augsburgers would be clothed for eternity with Jesus’ own Sacred Robes of Righteousness; not metaphorically, but really, mystic, supernal, sacramental: IN CHRIST!
The second activity, the crowd lining the road with clothes and palm branches—while waving others—shows the natural actions of people who love God.
There is no “hey Solomon, you might be king and all but we’re not putting up with all this ostentatious spending on art, fixtures, vestments, and appurtenances! Why don’t you know we could use this money for “miiii-sss-ons.” Thank you, Judas. No, this crowd used what they had to honor the Nazarene that many now believed was, in fact, The Christ of God. They would have used jewels, gold, and silver, and brocades of scarlet and blue, had they had them.
Why is Jesus here today? Not His essence, His “spirit,” His memory, but The actual BODILY JESUS (to be sure, invisible to the senses). You believe He is here. Act like it. But why?
Why did He process into Jerusalem? It’s the same reason He parades into Augsburg.
Then, to suffer and die for the sins of the world, for your sins. Now, to deliver the merit, benefit, out-put, and gracious gifts of that Bloody and Holy Sacrifice.
It is a mistake, somewhat ignorant but so much malicious, to think that the crowd that so vociferously cheered Christ on Sunday would be jeering for His horrible death on Friday. No, the two crowds were not coterminous and identical. The ones saluting The Lord were largely Galilean followers and pilgrims for the Passover Feast, as well as large crowds of Judeans who had either seen or heard of His very recent resurrection of Lazarus of Bethany—from the dead. Whether the faith of this crowd reaches your own supercilious judgment of them as not fully understanding all that’s in your Book of Concord brain, they for certain knew this Man was unlike no other; that He was quite likely the Messiah, and many were being converted by The Holy Ghost to the position that He was God in the flesh. They were going to honor that flesh.
The crowd shouted Hosanna, an Aramaic term translated variously as, “save now,” “save us now” (by being The Lord’s Messiah and restoring the kingdom of Israel/Saving us from our own sin), and also “God save the King—” The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob save His Messiah—Jesus of Nazareth.
This crowd did not want Jesus to suffer and die.
Jesus came for the specific reason to suffer and die. The people did not know what Jesus had told His “12” three times: “…that The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” [Mk. 8.31]. Though they did not know it, the people were, in reality, shouting “Lord God, send Thy Son to be our scapegoat and our Paschal Lamb of Sacrifice. Hold Him up in His mission of Redemption, let Him not falter nor fail. The King will soon be dead, for us and our sins, and will rise again: God save The King!” Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in The Highest.
Today is Palmarum. Today His bloody and pierced palms, and feet, and head, and side, cover you with His passover Blood—Blood which will soon be poured into your mouths.
Historically—The Son of David.
Transcendentally and Immanently—The Son of God!
That is Who is here now riding again to you, into you, and for you. Oh yes, IS MEANS IS!
“Blessed Is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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