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| [Palm Sunday, Khocho, Nestorian Temple (683-770 AD)] |
Matthew 21:1-11
1When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
5“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
6The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
10When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
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Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.
And so people hungered for a world where there would be no more death.
Jesus fed 5,000 hungry people at once.
And so people hungered for a world where everyone is able to eat.
Jesus spent his days and nights
in communion with poor people.
And so people hungered for a world
where everyone’s treated with dignity,
and where everyone has enough.
In other words,
since the beginning of his ministry,
Jesus had been a “foretaste” of that Kindom that he preached about,
scattering seeds of desire
for a better world
everywhere that he would go.
And so it’s no surprise that, on that first Palm Sunday,
everyone seemed to think that it was finally gonna happen.
There was Jesus:
riding in like royalty.
And there were the people:
shouting “Hosanna!”
This must be the right time, they all thought.
Today must be the day that the kindom of God will finally come in all of its glory
and save us from the nightmare
that is the present moment.
No more death, no more hunger, no more dehumanization,
and no more being poor anymore.
Today Jesus would replace the caesars
and take back control...
And as a result, today the world would begin to live in peace
and in harmony (perhaps for the first time, ever).
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And so:
The crowds that Jesus had fed:
those same crowds, they flooded the streets.
In hunger.
And in hope.
They gathered there.
Homesick for the Reign of God.
Homesick for a world that they had yet to fully know.
But that they really, really, badly wanted to come.
And so they congregated:
with their sticks
and with their palms
and with their songs, shouting and dreaming!
Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna!
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But
it wasn’t just the resurrecting
and the feeding
and the communing
that brought people hunger for God’s reign
(the one that Jesus preached about).
It was the healing, too.
So many sick people had been touched, and forgiven,
and (perhaps more importantly), cured by Jesus.
And having been cured, they (just like those who were fed)...
also hungered and hoped for what
might yet be.
They were healed and so they hoped for a world filled with health.
Can you imagine?
Can you dream (in this moment)
of a world where nobody is sick?
It’s quite a dream to have when we’re in the middle of a
waking nightmare,
isn’t it?
And still…
This was the kind of world that those healed-people began to anticipate.
These were the dreams that Jesus scattered,
the dreams that were planted deep down inside each of them.
I wonder how it felt in their guts and in their hearts
when they prayed for that world to come
for that dream to take root
“on earth (as it is in heaven).”
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Moved by hope (and by pain)
and fed by healing
these crowds--of healed people--with the others, flooded the streets:
with sticks and palms
and pains and hopes
and desires and songs of a better world.
They gathered around Jesus,
and they prayed.
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The word hosanna literally means “help!” or “Save us!” or “Please save us!” “God… just… HELP!”
It is a cry of desperation.
Something that we might say if we were begging:
“Please give me some help. Please.”
Hosanna… Help me…
It’s also a word that, over time, came to mean something like “Hooray!”
or “Praise to you,” or (as we sang today):
“All Glory, Laud, and Honor to you Redeemer King!”
It’s a word of desperation that can also be a word of praise.
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For Christians, it is a word that, each Palm Sunday,
hails Jesus’ entry into our town once again,
as we gather our own sticks and palms and pain,
and our songs
and our hopes
and our dreams,
and as we ask (yet again),
that these hopes of ours might soon be realized,
as we ask (again) that our trust (in the meantime)
might be enough, to sustain us,
and as we ask (again) that we might (somehow) know:
that even in this waking-nightmare
on the other side of the processions may, indeed, be a cross,
but on the other side of the cross,
there is still growing something green, something new,
On the other side of the cross,
there is still something of a Resurrection.
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Wherever Jesus went,
he planted dreams and desires of a better world:
a world where there is no more death,
a world where everyone is able to eat,
a world where nobody is dehumanized or degraded or poor.
And a world where all may be healed,
and healthy,
and cured.
What a radical dream to dream in the midst of a nightmare.
And so: what an appropriate dream
to lay before the savior,
pleading
and praising
as we find him on our Way, once again.
Hosanna!
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What hopes and pain do you bring to Jesus today?
What dream is God planting in you?
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