The bad news is Jesus is coming! Hooray?
Hooray for the Son of David, is what our scripture reading says today, and as a translation it’s okay. It gets at the meaning of what was happening in Jerusalem. The people were attending a rally of sorts and they were cheering on their team!
And as Jesus rode into the city astride the donkey or donkeys, depending on which of the gospels you read, folks sang the traditional songs that accompanied the annual pilgrimage up the streets from Jericho to Jerusalem.
The songs were the Psalms of Ascent from the book of Psalms. They reminded the people of the power and wonder of their God and of God’s great provision for his people in the Exodus, the story at the center of Passover.
But this Passover was, as it was so often, a story of deliverance smack dab in the midst of Jerusalem once again being an occupied city, a place of dynamic and dangerous struggle, a place where faith was hard, and so, sometimes celebration had to be harder!
And as he came, some noticed that Jesus entered the city much like the scriptures talked about the Messiah himself coming home to Jerusalem, astride not the armor plated white charger of the occupiers, but on the back of that ages pickup truck.
And they cheered with the traditional cheers of the Jewish people, not so loud that the soldiers came, but just loud enough that the disciples remembered.
For many of us, Hosanna is the word we want to hear. It is the traditional bible rendering of the words written long ago in Aramaic and transliterated into Greek as an expression of joy, for God’s deliverance, and hopped for deliverance once again.
But understand, while it sounds good and right to our ears, Hosanna, it was for the people gathering that day just a shout of delight, like hooray!
It was the disciples much more than the people gathered, and then for the most part after Jesus death and resurrection, that came to understand the amazing thing they had seen and experienced. God had brought deliverance, just not in the way any of them expected!
The Messiah finally had come to that great city!
And they almost missed it!
It was the beginning of God’s great moment. But in that great moment, the crowd mostly just saw the prophet from Galilee riding a donkey and they cheered because, well, because they wanted to cheer.
And it was good news!
It was good that Jesus had come to celebrate Passover. It was good news that he could be with his disciples. It was good news that they could eat that powerful an important meal together…
One last time.
The good news is Jesus is coming! Hooray!
The bad news is Jesus is coming! Hooray!
Because this Messiah also has come Matthew tells us, to start something big, to light a fire, to burn down the house, to begin the change, to upset the apple cart!
Which is why, we all need to note, that inviting Jesus into your life is wildly risky. He is delighted to come and to share a meal with you anytime (which is why, by-the-way, you might want to say a blessing at every meal).
But don’t be surprised if he also flips a few tables.
Palm Sunday is one of those great celebrations of the church that seems a bit odd. Yes, it is good news that Jesus is coming to Jerusalem as Messiah, but…
He is also coming to Jerusalem to make serious changes and to issue some serious challenges! This is not Jesus’ victory celebration feast! Rather it is a gathering of the storm clouds from which lightning is about to emanate.
Into the Temple he goes, tables are flipped, folks are chased out with a whip, and we are reminded that treating what is sacred in a profane way is unacceptable to God.
A stark reminder that treating what is God’s, including those made in God’s image, in a way that minimizes them or harms the beauty and dignity of God’s handiwork in them, places us all directly behind the tables Jesus plans to flip, with those Jesus will chase out of God’s presence.
The good news is Jesus is coming! Hooray!
The bad news is Jesus is coming! Hooray!
The best news…
Is just ahead….
Amen.
Into the Temple he goes, tables are flipped, folks are chased out with a whip, and we are reminded that treating what is sacred in a profane way is unacceptable to God.
A stark reminder that treating what is God’s, including those made in God’s image, in a way that minimizes them or harms the beauty and dignity of God’s handiwork in them, places us all directly behind the tables Jesus plans to flip, with those Jesus will chase out of God’s presence.
The good news is Jesus is coming! Hooray!
The bad news is Jesus is coming! Hooray!
The best news…
Is just ahead….
Amen.
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