Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Philippians 2:5-11 April 5, 2009

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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Sometimes you hear it said that good leadership is simply a matter of figuring out where the crowd is headed and then getting out in front of it. We could make a good case that this was what Jesus did on Palm Sunday. Every year at this time, we talk about Jesus heading up to Jerusalem for his final week, and the crowds who milled around him during his "Triumphal Entry" into the city. The truth is, completely apart from Jesus, the crowds, most of them, were already headed into the city. Israel was preparing for the great festival of Passover, and Jerusalem was the central gathering place every year for people from all over Israel who came for the celebration. Those who had specifically come with Jesus no doubt blended together with a much greater number of others like a stream pouring out into a much larger river. It was a time of reunion and celebration, a time of excitement and religious fervor, a time when people were edgy with a feeling a heightened anticipation. Perhaps this year would finally mark the arrival of their longed-awaited messiah.

Jesus, of course, knew all of this. In fact, I imagine he was counting on it. He was nearing the climax of his ministry, most likely wanting to make as big an impact with as many people as possible before he ran out of time. If you want people to think of you as the messiah, which seems to be what Jesus had in mind, what better way than to drop yourself into the middle of a crowd that is already looking for one? But it wouldn't be enough to simply appear in their midst, he would have had to enter into the roll that matched their expectations. Jesus would have known, that is - just as every man, woman and child in the crowd would have known - that the great Simon Maccabeaus had once entered Jerusalem in just this way. About one hundred and forty years earlier - which may sound like a lot, but was only about as far back as our own Civil War - Simon road into Jerusalem on a donkey, which was a way of proclaiming that he came in peace. Simon entered the city surrounded by crowds of people singing songs of praise and waving palm branches. Simon even cleansed the temple, kicking out the false priests and prophets. The entry of Simon Maccabeaus into Jerusalem was perhaps the greatest event of recent Jewish history. There is no way that the crowd would not have known that story.

Which of course means that there was no way they would have missed the symbolism of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, with singing and shouting crowds waving palm branches, and then immediately going up to cleanse the temple. Maybe we've all become a bit politically jaded in recent years, but it seems pretty obvious that none of this happened accidently. Someone would have had to track down a donkey, since it doesn't seem to have been Jesus' normal mode of transportation. Someone would have had to hand out palm branches and begin the laying coats in Jesus' path. Someone would have had to start them all shouting hosanna. Not that it would have taken much effort. The crowd was already primed for it. A little nudge in the right direction is all that was needed, and any halfway competent political operative would have known that. Make no mistake, there had to have been a very clear intentionality behind all this. The Triumphal Entry was, in effect, a carefully orchestrated political rally.

Now I know some of you might want to take exception to this. We like to believe that religion and politics don't mix, and judging from the last few years, it's hard to deny the wisdom of keeping them apart. Our images of Jesus usually paint him as a spiritual person, not a political one. But it's good to bear in mind that, in Jesus' day, there was no such thing as a separation of church and state. The church was the state. Jerusalem was the capital of Israel, every bit as much as it was the home of the Temple. So was Jesus playing politics on Palm Sunday? You bet he was. There's no way he could not have been. If he'd been content to teach parables and offer blessings to the ragged masses like any good rabbi, he might have lived a long and happy life. But once he decided to take on the mantle of Messiah and enter Jerusalem like the reincarnation of Simon Maccabeaus, his fate was sealed. The authorities could no longer afford the luxury of ignoring him.

It's simply not possible, I don't believe, that Jesus didn't know precisely what he was doing. He rode into Jerusalem on a wave of public enthusiasm. I've always liked that image. A few years ago, for Palm Sunday, I took this idea of Jesus riding a wave and ran with it. I called my sermon "Surfing Jerusalem." I thought it was pretty creative, but most everyone else thought it was just weird. It does make a good analogy though, if you don't press it too far. If you've ever been surfing, or know anything about it, riding a wave is a matter of hitting just the right spot. When a wave begins to build behind you, you paddle for all you're worth. If you're too far back you miss it. If you're too far forward it comes crashing down on you. I only ever actually surfed one time, and I got a face-full of sand for my efforts. But growing up in Southern California, you couldn't not know the basics of what surfers were trying to accomplish. As the Beach Boys put it, "Catch a wave you'll be sitting on top of the world."

So Jesus caught a wave. He managed to hit it just right, and he rode it into the city. But just when it looked like he was headed for the grand prize, just when he had managed to gather around himself the adulation of the masses and had raised their expectations to a fevered pitch, just when he had everyone convinced that the great Simon Maccabeaus had been born again, he pulled the plug. Right at the crest of the wave he made it clear that he was not going to be the messiah they wanted. He was not going to give them the satisfaction they were clamoring for. And that's when the wave turned and broke on him. Next time you're flipping channels and you come across a surfing show and you see someone lose it on a big wave off the beach in Hawaii somewhere, you see a board go flying through the air and a body slammed and crushed under a mountain of angry water, think of Jesus. That's basically what happened.

And somehow, doesn't it all seem like madness when you consider the very real possibility that he did it all on purpose, that it was all somehow grandly orchestrated? I've spent a lot of years thinking about the tragedy of Jesus' death; and of course it was a tragedy. But let me ask you what should be a pretty uncomfortable question. What is the nature of a tragedy when someone consciously and intentionally brings it down around his own ears? In the closing song of Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas asks the question we've all been left wondering about. "Did you mean to die like that? Was that a mistake or, did you know your messy death would be a record breaker? Don't you get me wrong; I only want to know." Think about it for a minute. What would we call Jesus' death, what name would we give to "Holy Week," if it had been anyone other than Jesus?

But that's just the point; it was Jesus. And because it was Jesus, we've come to understand that we can't simply look at Holy Week from a human perspective. For those who are blessed to have the eyes of faith, we believe that what would be madness in anyone else is obedience in Jesus. What would normally be thought an act of suicide was, in him, a self-emptying act of love. What would be pointless and tragic for most of us became transcendent for the one who knew his own equality with God.

I've said over and over, and I'll say again: it is not possible to make any sense of the events of this Holy Week, unless and until we look back at them through the eyes of the resurrection. I know there are a great many people these days who have trouble reconciling in their minds what faith calls miraculous and science calls impossible. But for those of us who believe, the resurrection is the very truth of God in Christ. Jesus allowed himself to be crushed and broken because he knew it would not be the end of the story. Jesus let himself to be washed away by the wave he himself created, in order to teach us that, in God, we cannot ever be washed away.

I invite you all to take deeply into your hearts and minds the events of this Holy Week, and may you be blessed by them.

Amen