Give a Wave and a Shout

Give a Wave and a Shout

Mark 11:1-11

Two employees of the public works department in Boonville worked hard all day recently, taking advantage of the warm weather. One would dig a hole, and the other would follow behind and fill the hole in. They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one digging a hole, the other filling it in again.

An onlooker was curious, and asked them why they were doing this. The hole digger wiped his brow and sighed, “Well, I suppose it probably looks odd because we’re normally a three-person team. But today the tree planter called in sick.”

For much of the world, this is what Christianity looks like. We are busy working one side of the street and then the other, digging holes and then filling them up. The world is puzzled by this because the middle part of the process is missing, and the tree of eternal life doesn’t get planted.

We dig the hole – we tell people that they need to cry to Jesus, “save us.” We fill the hole – we tell people that Jesus saves us by what happens on Easter morning.

We dig the hole – Jesus rides a donkey into Jerusalem, as the crowd cries “hosanna,” which means “save us.” We fill the hole – on Easter, we cry out “hallelujah,” which means “praise God,” because Jesus has saved us.

We dig the hole – the crowds give Jesus a wave and a shout in a parade of palm branches. We fill the hole – we give Jesus a wave and a shout in a parade of Easter bonnets.

Today we celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Churches all around the world are waving their palm branches to honor the procession of Jesus and his disciples. Some ministers will then dig a hole, wondering how the crowds that were singing “hosanna” on Sunday could so quickly turn and cry out “crucify him” just a few days later. These ministers will then offer the usual conclusion that people are fickle, and that even disciples desert Jesus. They will tell you, as they stand in the hole, that it is hard to follow Jesus.

These ministers will ask their congregation to fill the hole. It takes a special kind of person to follow Jesus, they say, because it takes time, it takes commitment, it takes sacrificial giving, it takes someone to co-teach the kindergarten class – or whatever other challenging spot needs to be filled at their church that week. For most people, however, when they come back the next week, there is a celebration because the hole has been filled. It is what Jesus has done that matters, not what we do. Jesus has won the victory over sin and death, and his victory is sufficient to cover all our sins. Nothing is needed from us.

A hole is dug. A hole is filled. And the world can’t see thatit makes any difference at all. So, this morning I want us to look at the verse in our reading that suggests that following Jesus is about so much more than a simple wave and a shout.

In Mark’s gospel, every word is there for a reason, so we have to look at all of them. In today’s reading, there is one verse that we usually gloss over. Oh, we hear it, but we don’t really listen to it. So, let’s listen again: Then [Jesus] entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Pretty exciting stuff, right? Jesus looks around, and then goes home. Compared to the procession, and the waving of palm branches, and the crowd singing “hosanna,” why should we notice Jesus looking around and going home? But the gospel writer thought it was important to include, because it is important. But the gospel writer was writing for the people then, who would have known something that we don’t usually know today.

To understand the significance of this verse, we have to go back a few years before this Palm Sunday in Jerusalem. You see, this was not the first Palm Sunday in Jerusalem. The people had seen this before.

The first Palm Sunday happened just a few years after the Romans had taken power in Israel. The prophecy concerning the triumphal coming of the messiah went from being something only the best Bible students would know, to being something every Jew hoping to be set free from oppression would know. They knew the messiah would come on the Sunday before Passover. They knew that the messiah would come across the valley riding on a peaceful animal, a donkey or a colt. They knew that the procession of about 2 miles would begin at Bethany and make its way through the encampments of the pilgrims who had come for the Passover celebration.

These pilgrims, we remember, are there in the valley because they come to remember how their ancestors had been set free from slavery in Egypt by the messiah Moses. The people knew that, like Moses, the new messiah would part the sea of humanity. The songs of freedom that were part of the ritual entrance into Jerusalem would be sung in waves washing up against the Temple gates. When the messiah would come again, they would know that God was doing an amazing thing among them.

The first time it happened, it wasn’t called Palm Sunday. That was the invention of the first, self-appointed, messiah. For a people who do not believe in graven images, an image on a flag was too close for comfort. Instead, the palm branch had become an acceptable substitute for a national flag. It also had the advantage of being easily acquired and therefore quickly spread among the people.

On this first Palm Sunday, this messiah and his army of 400 men came waving their palm branches across the valley. As the people began to figure it out, seeing the leader on a donkey, the songs would be sung – at first by the army, and then by those closest to the procession, and then finally in waves all across the valley. And by the time this messiah reached the city gates, everyone knew the messiah had come.

Everyone, of course, included the Roman soldiers who were under strict orders to keep the Roman peace. By the time this messiah and his army got to the gates, the Romans were ready. And after a short and decisive battle, the messiah and his army were defeated. Those that survived the battle were crucified, with their bodies left on the crosses all week long.

A few years passed, and another self-appointed messiah decided to make the procession across the valley on Palm Sunday. A donkey was acquired, palm branches were passed out, and the procession began with the songs being sung. This messiah had decided the problem of the first messiah was that he had an army with him, which alerted the Romans to his plan to take power. So this messiah rode across the valley alone, but the singing still alerted the Romans. They watched and waited as he came across the valley by himself. When he reached the gates of the city, he called for the people to take up arms and follow him. No one did, but it was enough for the Romans to consider him a threat anyway. So they arrested him, beheaded him, and then placed his head on a stake just outside the Temple to remind the people who was in power.

In our reading for today, it is the Sunday before Passover. The disciples have borrowed a colt, the palm braches are waved, the procession begins, and the songs are sung. Jesus rode the donkey, parting the sea of humanity, and the songs begin crashing like waves over the valley. The Romans noticed, and were ready. There was no army with Jesus, just a ragtag band of disciples. The Romans had to wait for Jesus to say something that would indicate that he had come to take power. Yet, when he got to the city gates, Mark’s gospel tells us, Jesus went in to the Temple, looked around, and since it was late, he headed back out to Bethany with the twelve.

Scholars differ on their estimates of how many people were in the valley that day. The numbers range from 30,000 to over 100,000 people. I want you to imagine what it must have been like to walk through that crowd of disappointed people. This isn’t a quick ducking out of sight or behind a door, but a two-mile walk through an increasingly hostile crowd. The other two messiahs might have failed, but at least they did something – at least they tried to be the messiah. All Jesus apparently did was get their hopes up, and then he turned around as if to say to the Romans and to the people, “just kidding.”

So why did Jesus turn around and go back to Bethany? Why did he stop to take a look around the Temple? What keeps this from being a story of a hole being dug, and a hole being filled, with nothing to show for the effort? It is this last verse that answers these questions.

Jesus didn’t make the journey across the valley to pick a fight with the Romans. He made the journey to pick a fight with Satan. Jesus didn’t make the journey to re-establish the kingdom of David. He made the journey to bring the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus didn’t make the journey to have the crowd declare him the messiah. He made the journey because he is the messiah. That journey could not end with a declaration of war at the Temple gate. That journey can only end with the declaration that Jesus is surely the Son of God. That declaration was made at the foot of the cross, and behind the closed doors, and whenever we make our confession of faith.

Jesus went back to Bethany because he did not confuse the prophet’s word of hope with the expectations of the people. The people expected a military leader who would win the day. The prophets’ hope was for a leader for all time. The people expected an earthly kingdom with clearly defined borders and citizens. The prophets’ hope was for the kingdom of God that would welcome all people. The people expected a messiah who would insure their right to make their Passover sacrifices year after year after year. The prophets’ hope was for the Lamb of God, whose sacrifice on our behalf would be once for all time, and once for all people.

Rather than meeting the expectations of the people, Jesus fulfills the expectations of God. Jesus was not a self-appointed messiah who comes to win a kingdom for himself, but the One sent by God to claim his kingdom. Jesus didn’t need an army to defeat an enemy – he needed a cross to defeatsin and death. Jesus didn’t need a declaration of war, or a dramatic confrontation – he simply had to go back among the people to where they lived.

The ancient rabbis used to say that the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea was not that God parted the sea. The miracle was that the first fleeing Hebrew stepped onto the sea bed, with a huge wall of water to his right, another to his left. The miracle is that this Hebrew then followed his messiah towards the Promised Land. That miracle is a pretty good way to understand what it means being saved by grace through faith. It was the grace of God that parted the sea and provided the path – it was faith taking the first step that would lead them to their salvation. The miracle in this story is not that Jesus parted the seas of humanity on his way to the gates of Jerusalem. The miracle, the gift of God’s grace and power, is that Jesus stepped into that sea of humanity on his way back to Bethany, as he continued to follow God.

It is not enough to know that there is a hole in our lives. It is not enough to know that, because of Easter, the hole gets filled. We have to take that step in faith. We have to move out of the crowd that is satisfied to give a wave and a shout, and put ourselves in that hole, to plant ourselves in faith, so that we can take root and bear fruit for the kingdom. We need to follow Jesus as we walk through the grace-enabled path he has set before us, even when there are seas of disappointed people on either side expecting something much different from us.

If we will do this, then the world will not be confused about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. If we will do this, then the world will see that it does make a difference being a Christian, and that we are not just digging a hole to fill a hole. Let us ask Jesus to fill that hole in our hearts, and save us today, because that is more exciting than any parade can ever be.

Faith We Sing 2154 “Please Enter My Heart, Hosanna”