The events of Palm Sunday (and the day before)

Sermon for Palm Sunday

Philippians 2:5-11  + Harmony of the Gospels for Palm Sunday

And so it begins, our annual walk with Jesus through this Holy Week. We don’t pretend that the events are happening all over again. Jesus didn’t ride in on a donkey today, nor will He be crucified again on Good Friday, nor will His body return to the tomb for the great Sabbath rest. So there’s no need for us to be overly somber or mournful this week. Holy Week isn’t for reenacting these events from Jesus’ life. It’s for remembering—or, if necessary, learning for the first time—what that special week was all about, the lessons Jesus taught, the things Jesus suffered, and the reason why He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. As Martin Luther wrote in his order for the German Mass, “Lent, Palm Sunday, and Holy Week shall be retained, not to force anyone to fast, but to preserve the Passion history and the Gospels appointed for that season…Holy Week shall be like any other week save that the Passion history be explained every day for an hour throughout the week or on as many days as may be desirable, and that the sacrament be given to everyone who desires it. For among Christians the whole service should center in the Word and sacrament.” And so it shall.

Just about everything that took place during that first Holy Week took everyone by surprise, except for Mary, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus. Mary knew, at least in a general way, how that week would end. That’s why she poured out all that expensive oil on Jesus’ head and feet, to anoint Him for His burial, which would take place within a week’s time.

Mary knew. And, of course, Jesus knew. He knew everything, even where His disciples would find a pair of donkeys tied up, a mother and her colt. And still, knowing how the week would end, He sent for the donkeys. And He got up on that young colt on which no one had ever sat. It had been reserved in God’s master design for this sacred use by the Son of God. Not that He needed it to get to Jerusalem. He had always walked to the city before. No, He needed it to send the intended message—a message which even His own disciples didn’t fully understand until after the fact. It was the message God had sent to Israel hundreds of years ahead of time, through the prophet Zechariah: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The message was that Jesus was the promised Christ, that He was the true, eternal King of the Jews, that He had come to bring salvation to His people, and that He had come to do it first in a spiritual way, not as a glorious champion, but as a humble one, not as a commander of armies riding in on a horse, but as the Commander of angel hosts riding in on a donkey, not as a king sitting on a throne, but as a King hanging from a cross. He would bring salvation to His people, not by seizing power, but by allowing Himself to be seized. He would bring salvation, not by punishing the guilty, but by bearing the guilt of all men, not by ushering in an age of justice among men, but by suffering the most terrible injustice at the hands of men. The One who occupied the highest place of power and glory, together with God the Father, would humble Himself down to the lowest place of shame, disgrace, and death.

And yet, for all His humility, He welcomed the praises of the people that day. They weren’t the empty praises of flatterers. They were the genuine praises of people who knew they needed saving somehow, and who believed that Jesus was coming to save them somehow, although they didn’t know what kind of saving they actually needed or how Jesus would accomplish their salvation. They didn’t realize that the devil was their greatest enemy—a far greater enemy than poverty or than social injustice or than political oppressors—the one who had approached the first human beings in a garden and overcame them by convincing them to rebel against God by eating from a forbidden tree, whence death arose. They didn’t grasp how big God’s plans were, that He had ordained the salvation of mankind to come from another tree, from the tree (or the wood) of the cross (listen for a reference to this later on in the Proper Preface before Communion), so that people might “eat” from that tree and live forever. How? By believing in the crucified Christ, who was delivered up to death for our sins and raised again to life for our justification, that we might be justified by faith in the One who willingly made His way to the cross for us, through all the opposition that He faced during Holy Week, through all the suffering He endured from the Garden of Gethsemane up to the great “It is finished!”

The people of Jerusalem couldn’t fathom all that Jesus, their true Passover Lamb, would endure on their behalf during that Holy Week. And yet they still went out to meet Him and sang His praises with joy in their hearts. God the Father had ordained that Jesus must receive this well-deserved praise as the One who comes in the name of the Lord. Yes, the Father insisted on it, so much so that, if the people had remained silent, then the stones themselves would have had to cry out in praise of Jesus, the King of the Jews, as Jesus told the angry Pharisees.

But the joy wouldn’t last, at least, not for most of Jerusalem. Jesus foresaw that and wept for the city, for the people whom God the Father had invited ahead of time to His Son’s banquet of salvation. He wasn’t weeping for what the Jews would do to Him on Good Friday. Yes, their behavior would be wicked and appalling, but they could have been forgiven for that. Jesus was about to give His life to make atonement for all the wickedness of men, even the wickedness of crucifying the Son of God. But there is no forgiveness, only condemnation, both temporal and eternal, for those who refuse to repent of their wickedness, who go on living in it, who are proud of their sins, or who try to make up for them in some other way than by trusting in Jesus Christ, whose blood alone can reconcile sinners to God.

But you are here today as those who have repented of your wickedness, who do repent of it, and who recognize the Lord Jesus as your King and your Savior. You know that He came to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to spend the week there fighting for you, suffering for you, and teaching you the things you need to know for your salvation. So may the Lord bless our meditations this week as we hear large portions of His inspired Word. May God bless our learning and our remembering, and may He grant us the spirit to hear and to listen, to thank and to praise, to love and to appreciate Jesus, our Savior and King, and to rejoice in Him and in the peace of His kingdom. Amen.