A Cheering, Chanting, Dizzy Crowd
(Rutgers, March 28, 1999; Palm Sunday, Year A)
Psalm 118:1–2, 19–29 (OT, pp. 625, 626);
Matthew 21:1–11 (NT, p. 23)
(some illustrations + images come from Homiletics,
March/April, 1999, pp. 42–44)
Holy Week begins today, with our observance of Palm Sunday,
a day swept by strong eddies and crosscurrents of emotion—
a day when celebrations swirl with foreboding,
when "Hosannas!" echo back with the sound of "Crucify,"
when we hail a Messiah
who's soon to be pierced and tortured and put to death.
For the triumphal procession that we call to mind today
will lead westward not just to Jerusalem but through Jerusalem,
beyond its farmost enclosing wall,
outside to the stark outcrop of unquarried rock called
Calvary, Golgotha—The Place of the Skull.
Throughout Holy Week, the climax of our forty-day lenten journey,
one of our tasks is to become part of this tortuous story of
Jesus in Jerusalem,
to find our place among the "cheering, chanting, dizzy crowd"
[to use the title of Thomas Troeger's contemporary hymn]
that surrounds him there;
and another of our tasks is to let this story of Jesus in Jerusalem
become part of us.
Our task, then, in Holy Week is two-fold:
first, to find the role we play in Jesus's story; and then,
to allow Jesus's story to play a formative role in shaping our lives.
Join me now on a journey back to the first century.
Over the past 3 years, Jesus has been conducting his ministry almost
exclusively in the Jewish hinterland of Galilee, far to the north.
But now he and his entourage have turned south, coming as pilgrims
to the Holy City of Jerusalem in order to celebrate Passover,
the Jewish festival that commemorates God's liberation of Israel,
some thirteen centuries earlier, from bondage in Egypt.
Quite poignant, the observance of this festival,
for Jews now in bondage to Rome.
The press of the multitude in Jerusalem is always great at Passover.
To participate in this festival, Jews come from throughout
the Roman Empire and from the lands of the east, as well,
so that this city of perhaps 60,000 citizens swells to some-
where between 4 and 10 times its normal population!
A quarter million or a half million people!
Quite difficult, the problem of crowd control,
for Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect,
the man-in-charge.
And now, to complicate matters for
Pilate's fragile grip on order during Passover,
a veritable earthquake of an event comes along.
A Jew, admittedly most unimpressively dressed and coifed,
a Jew mounted on a lowly she-ass, trailed by her colt,
crests the Mount of Olives
and, accompanied by a noisy, psalm-singing throng,
in full view of both the Jewish Temple
and the Roman Fortress of Antonia—
a Jew descends slowly down the rocky slope
to the Kedron Valley, to the foot
of the easternmost wall of Jerusalem.
First-century Jerusalem is a far simpler time and place than our own.
Pilate and his chief henchman, the Jewish High Priest, Caiaphas—
they haven't awakened to unfold a Sunday Jerusalem Times
bearing the headline, "Jesus Leaves Jericho for Jerusalem."
No.
And the pilgrims bivouacked around Jerusalem—
they haven't gotten up + turned on a morning CNN news show
to find some ancient Wolf Blitzer quizzing Jesus,
astride his donkey, about rumors that he's intending
to disrupt business in the temple.
And the citizens of Jerusalem haven't been titillated,
for weeks in advance, by puff pieces in a People magazine
or on an Entertainment Weekly about "The Celebrity Christ,"
one of society's "25 Most Intriguing People."
There've been no paparazzi selling to a National Enquirer
exclusive photographs of Jesus's feet being bathed in tears
and anointed with oil—by a sinful woman;
no Mark Shields and Paul Gigot debating
what the real political intentions of Jesus may be;
no Gail Sheehy offering a psychological profile of Jesus
for a Vanity Fair;
no Dan Rather asking cult specialists to comment on
the Jesus Sect and the way it's been breaking up families.
There's been no public relations firm stoking the ardor of Jesus's
fans by releasing a new CD of Jesus's singing psalms at a
synagogue and telling parables along the shores of Galilee.
No, none of this hype's happened in Jerusalem prior to Jesus' arrival.
Yet still, when Jesus appears, the crowd goes wild.
They have no throwaway Kodaks to flash,
no videocams to busily record the day's events.
What they do have are the cloaks-off-their-backs
and leafy branches snapped from trees
to pave the dusty road
and hail their vaunted king.
"Hosanna to the Son of David,"
"Save us now, O mighty king," they shout.
"Blessed is the One who comes in the name of God!" they cry,
chanting a traditional Passover psalm, sung in temple
and home, a psalm celebrating a ruler who,
by the steadfast love and power of God,
triumphs over humiliation and oppression.
The cheering for Jesus the King that we hear
is the crowd chanting from Psalm 118,
our First Lesson.
Well, we can imagine the alarm bells that sound in Pilate's palace
when couriers arrive there from the Fortress of Antonia
carrying news of the crowd's tumultuous welcoming of Jesus.
Perhaps Pilate briefly allows himself the luxury of a sneer
at the ludicrous image of a so-called "king"
bobbing + bouncing along on a donkey
when even Pilate, a mere prefect, rides around town
on a strong-charging stallion.
But no, this meek and mild "king" isn't the problem;
he can be dealt with rather swiftly and easily.
After all, he's arriving in town not with a force or display of arms
but with some preposterous claim about "the strength of love."
Yeah! Right!
No, thinks Pilate, Jesus himself isn't the problem;
he can be dealt with swiftly and easily.
The real problem is that cheering, chanting, dizzy crowd.
They have to be neutralized; they have to be "turned around,"
or things in Jerusalem could turn bloody!
The crowd's Passover mood of anticipation and celebration
has to somehow be turned into a sour wine, a bitter bread.
So Pilate sends for Caiaphas, and together they watch and wait:
they wait for opportunities to turn the fickle crowd against Jesus;
for opportunities to frustrate the crowd's
fervent hope and expectation that Jesus will prove to be
a military Messiah, a militant liberator;
they watch and wait for opportunities to convert
those frustrated hopes and expectations of the crowd
into angry denunciations of Jesus for failing them,
and perhaps even into calls for his death.
It's Palm Sunday again, and every Palm Sunday,
it is we who play the part of the cheering, chanting, dizzy crowd
whom the Pilates and Caiaphases of this world
are seeking to turn against Jesus by arguing that love is weak
and that peacemaking is impotent
in the face of the principalities and powers of this world.
When Jesus challenged evil, he chose the donkey over the stallion;
he chose the way of the cross over the path of the sword.
And by so doing, he lost, in the course of just a few short days,
the allegiance of most of the crowd.
The question we are to ask ourselves today
and each and every Palm Sunday—
as we stand confidently and triumphantly with Jesus
at the start of Holy Week—
the question we are to ask ourselves today is this:
Where will we be found tomorrow, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, and this Friday?
Will we become so frustrated by the apparent weakness
of peacemaking and love
and by the apparent victory of violence and bloodshed
in places like Kosovo, Rwanda, Tibet, and the Bronx—
will we become so frustrated that we, like Judas, will by Friday
be found among those betraying Jesus;
or that we, like large parts of the crowd, will by Friday
be found among those consigning Jesus to death;
or that we, like Peter, will by Friday
be found among those denying we've ever known Jesus?
Or will we, even then, on Good Friday—
like Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph—
still be found with Jesus,
still be found standing watch at the cross,
still be found standing convinced of the power of love?
You see, Palm Sunday is a day
that's swept with strong eddies and crosscurrents of emotion,
a day whose glorious shouts of Hosanna are echoed back
by Good Friday's cries of "Crucify!"
By this Friday, the palms and the branches will have been replaced
by thorns and a tree-trunk.
And the cloak-strewn road will have led right through Jerusalem
and beyond it to Calvary, Golgotha—The Place of the Skull.
What role will we play as the rest of this week's story unfolds?
+ what impact will the developments in the story have on our lives?
Fellow members of Palm Sunday's "cheering, chanting, dizzy
crowd,"
I invite you to join me and members of the Presbytery
at 60 Centre Street tomorrow morning at 11:30 am,
a time when Jesus confronted the authorities in the temple.
Next, I invite you to join me here on Thursday at 7 pm
for our reenactment of Christ's last supper,
and then again on Friday between noon and 2 pm
to stand watch with me at Christ's cross.
I invite you to join me Monday for part 2,
Thursday for part 3
and Friday for part 4
of this Palm Sunday/Holy Week story of Jesus,
a story that's definitely … to be continued.
Let us pray:
Loving, Gentle, Suffering Messiah, may we be found at your side not only today but throughout this week. May we witness to your strength and love tomorrow at One Police Plaza. And then, may we both sup at your table and kneel at your cross. And finally, may we, having tasted your grace, prove willing to share the cost of your love. Amen.
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