Palm Sunday Homily

Homily for Palmarum 2021 

People loved by God, because we have spent the Lenten Midweeks meditating on the Holy Passion, today’s sermon will not deal with that, but we’ll return to the joy we had at the beginning of the service: the Palm Sunday Gospel from St. Matthew 21 and meditate our way through that together. Before we begin, though, would you join me in prayer? Lord God, heavenly Father, we ought always to thank and praise and glorify You that You appointed Your Son as King and Savior to rescue us from the tyranny of sin and death. Enlighten, direct and lead us by Your Holy Spirit so that we always cling to this King and joyfully sing His praises throughout our days here in this world and finally with all the saints around Your throne. We ask it in His holy name. Amen.

Matthew 21:1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” You may not know what meets you at the bend in the road, on the other side of the hill, or further down the pike. But that was never the case with Jesus. He always knows what is up ahead, for him and for his disciples and so for you and me. And He’d been telling them what’s up ahead for Him for a long time now: about the sufferings that awaited in Jerusalem and then the glory of the resurrection. And so to inaugurate that holy week when the Lamb of God would suffer and die for the sins of the world and so trounce death and leave it in the dust, He plans a little surprise. A parade. Over and over again, we’ve heard Jesus tell people in the Gospels: “Hush. Don’t tell anyone who I am.” But that’s all at an end now. He’s preparing to show the whole world who He is. And so He sends two of the disciples to find that donkey and colt that he knows are there and just waiting, and to bring them to him.

4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” Echoes here, people loved by God, of an earlier Son of David who rode David’s mule into Jerusalem to shouts of “Long live King Solomon!” And back then that served notice to the man who was trying to usurp the throne that the real King had just been revealed to Israel. The sacred writers tell us that the people went up after Solomon with music and singing and joy. The noise was so raucous that it shook the earth. And then centuries later, the prophet Zechariah foretells a divine re-do as we heard in the first reading! That’s when THE promised Son of David, THE true King of God’s people, would arrive in much the same way. Humble. Mounted on a donkey, And joy would be everywhere that day, when King JESUS rides the ass into His holy City.

6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.  Smart move. Do what Jesus tells you to! I remember wondering how Jesus rode on them both “and,,,he sat on them.” He may indeed have ridden first one, then the other. The Fathers thought that was a way of saying He came for Israel—the “broken in” ass—and for the Gentiles, —the colt which had not yet been ridden. Barb Brase one day pointed out the obvious to me that I had somehow missed: “He sat on THEM.” The reference to the them, there, is probably “their cloaks” rather than donkey and her colt. The disciples’ clothes form a sort of saddle for him.

8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Like the story of Sir Walter Raleigh before Queen Elizabeth the First: Jesus’ red carpet welcome, if you will. You can see them coming off and lining the street as the donkey and colt are led along with Jesus astride one or the other crests the Mount of Olives and begins His descent.. But also “branches from the trees.” Only St. John mentions that the branches were palms.

9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And so we come at last to the most important part of this whole Gospel. They are basically singing from Psalm 118.

Hosanna is just the Hebrew way of shouting: “Save us now!” So what were they thinking? That He was riding into His holy City to lead the revolt that would fling the Romans across the Mediterranean back to where they came from ? That He’d come to be the kind of Savior that fixes the stuff that goes wrong in your life here? He did do plenty of that in His ministry, of course: healing the sick, driving out demons, even raising the dead to life. But now, now He’s come to His great moment to actually answer that prayer: “Save us now.” Later, as you just heard, they’d cry: “Save yourself and come down from the Cross.” His silence is His answer: “No, I’d rather stay here and save YOU.” What you need is not some temporary fix. What you need is a sacrifice of atonement that can wipe out sins forever and that is what he comes to provide.. Psalm 118 again: “Bind the festal sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar.” HE’S the festal sacrifice and the altar is the Cross. That’s where Your King will reign in a sacrifice of love so breathtakingly amazing that it will capture the hearts of men and women of every nation and century, and make them love Him forever.

Now, you MUST have noticed that we don’t just hear this “Hosanna” and “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” on Palm Sunday or the first Sunday in Advent. Oh, no. It’s a regular part of our Divine Service. Right after you’ve been trembling with Isaiah in the temple, as the cherubim sing their holies, the temple fades and suddenly you are with the pilgrims crowding the road that joyous Palm Sunday, doffing coats, and waving the palm branches in the air, and singing to the King who has come to us as Zechariah foretold long ago, bringing salvation. That day He rode into the holy city on the beasts of burden. Today He comes to you, “riding” the bread and wine which He will make His true body and blood. But He comes for the same reason: to answer your prayer for salvation, to deliver to you forgiveness and pour His divine life into you. Salvation indeed!

And so as often as you catch the first glimpse of Him coming into our midst with His life-giving gifts, you can’t help but break into your hosannas and blessed is he’s, joining the church of all ages in welcoming the King. Your King. And it’s almost like we stutter with joy getting the words out: “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He! Blessed is He! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!”

And here is is something my Pastor taught me of when I was a young teen, which is now a long time ago: we must never let the sorrow of what awaits at the week’s end eclipse the joy of  today’s feast. Jesus wouldn’t. Instead, He told the grumps who wanted to squelch the children’s joy in the temple that if they succeeded in quieting them, then the very stones would cry out! (Which, of course, they would do on Good Friday).

So here is present joy: Your King comes to you today. And very shortly His body and His blood will go into you. Forgiveness that wipes out of all your sin. The pledge of His undying love for you.. Today you get to join the crowds in the raucous “Hosanna” and “Blessed is he!” Today. Let it rip!

The King comes. Welcome Him with gladness, that we may attain unto the good things that He has promised us, by His grace and love towards mankind, to whom be glory and dominion, now and ever, world without end. Amen.