Sermon for Palm Sunday – 2nd April 2023

Revd Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

 

There is a telling little phrase in St. Luke’s gospel (9,53) where the author says ‘Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.’

It has a ring of determination to it – a planned or strategic decision. One wonders if there had been any conversations around this decision – had the disciples been given access to the details of this new direction? The little phrase has the resonance of purpose or what we might nowadays call ‘intentionality’.

Whether Our Lord had shared this intention with his closest comrades or not, the Jerusalem based followers of Jesus seem to get wind of his arrival, and are waiting. As he journeys from the area of Bethany where he had raised Lazarus from the grave, down through the Kidron Valley, past Gethsemane, if he looks up Jesus will see the walled city and to his left the pinnacle of the temple – so infamous as the location of one of the Temptations by Satan, the temptation of material, physical power.

His supporters are waiting for him as the rumours have grown about his arrival. They were anxious about what would happen – what would he do – how would he fulfil their expectations?

In the end he disappoints them. Yes, Jesus disappoints them. He disappoints them because of a basic clash of expectations about the messiah. On the one hand there was an expectation that the messiah would be a second King David – after all this was his city, the City of David.

David had been a supreme ruler, conquering all tribes and uniting the Hebrew people into one distinct nation. His was a time of unity, of flourishing, of powerful leadership, of a union between earthly and heavenly power, human and divine supremacy.

After a thousand years without King David, the messiah would be like him.

But the people are mistaken. They have forgotten their scriptures. They have not remembered the words of Isaiah, where the messiah is clearly presented as one who is humble, indeed humiliated, one who is bruised, despised and forsaken.  (Isaiah 53)

So the people greet their king/messiah as he arrives on his donkey. Fulfilling a prophecy in Zechariah, their King does not arrive on a great white stallion.

Yet they shout out in their excitement ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’. I suppose we might think something like ‘Hurrah, our king has come’.

Well, we would be wrong. Hosanna is not a cheer of joy and happiness, but a Hebrew word for ‘save us’. They are pleading with him, pleading with their Messiah to save them.

In human terms Jesus has a choice. He can please the people and satisfy them by turning right as he goes through the gate. This would take him on a route that would end up at the Roman palace of Pontius Pilate, the centre of foreign, pagan rule; Pilate is the epitome of this oppressive alien power. Their messiah/ king will overthrow him and the people will be saved – proper freedom will be restored and the city of David handed back to the Jewish people. Will Jesus turn right and save them?

No, he turns left and heads for the temple which had been turned into a den of thieves, where true religion had been distorted and exploited, and where a corrupt version of God was being forced on the people. Jesus disappoints the people. Their king would not be liberating them in the way they hoped and expected; there would be no overthrow of the Roman eagle. Instead, the intention of Jesus in Jerusalem is to liberate the people from the shackles and chains of their false adherence to religion, to restore them to faithfulness, and to become the true offering for their sins as the Lamb of God, sacrificed on the cross, the cross of both shame and glory.

So this holy week has begun; the great and holy week has begun as we journey with Christ from the howling of ‘Hosanna’