Palm Sunday
Who is this King of Glory?
Lift up your heads
All ye gates
And be ye lifted up
You everlasting walls
That the King of Glory might come in
Who is this King of Glory?
Are you the one who is to come or are we to await another?
Who do people say the Son of Man is?
Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
Who is this who is speaking blasphemies?
Who do you say that I am?
Who is this king of Glory? Adonai? The Lord? The Lord, Strong and Mighty? The Lord Strong and Mighty in Battle ?
Our passage for today is Luke’s account of Jesus Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem:
Throughout Luke’s gospel Jesus has moved relentlessly towards the city of Jerusalem. Here Jesus approaches the city with all the fanfare and trappings of a regal procession. The disciples are sent out to find a donkey. They are told– If the Lord of the house asks of them why they need this animal. They are to tell them that a higher Lord requires it!
The crowd is said to lay their cloaks on the ground for Jesus and his donkey. This parade echoes processions of earthly kings into the city of Jerusalem.
In this account the multitudes of disciples answer the question—Who is this King? – by proclaiming that “Jesus is the King that comes in the name of the Lord.”
Jesus says that if these words were not uttered (now!) as HE entered the city of Jerusalem. The city of destiny. The city of forsaken prophecy of murdered prophets.
If the words “The King that comes in the name of the Lord!” were not proclaimed
Then the very rocks would cry out.
And yet the praise seems muted and stilted here in the 19th chapter of Luke:
The Gospel of Luke begins with Armies of Angels proclaiming “Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men.” Now as the Gospel nears its completion the almost muted human praise threatens to make the earth shudder.
While before, angels in heaven proclaimed Peace on Earth! Now, disciples here on earth proclaim “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
Is this a sign that Luke’s Kingdom has been spiritualized? Have phantom hopes of peace on earth have been replaced with real peace in heaven?
Or is it instead another sign that everything is backward?
Heavenly angels proclaiming earthly peace;
A straggly band of men and women proclaiming peace and glory in the highest heaven?
Or, is it simply not yet time for peace on earth?
Or in the words of Matthew: Did Christ “come not to bring peace but the sword”?
Who is this King of Glory?
And then there is a related question: Who are we in relation to this king?
Who can stand on the day of his appearing?
Who has eyes to see? Who has ears to hear?
Who is FOR him? Who is against Him?
And what time is it? What kind of Kingdom is being ushered in?
The Gospel writer of Luke (as well as the synoptics and John) draw on the prophecy of Zechariah,
And it description of the Day of the Lord
Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
The prophetic traditions around the day of the Lord are complicated. What is this visitation of the Lord? In the prophets it meant many thing for Jerusalem: its salvation! Its judgment! Its destruction! Its restoration!
This particular vision from Zechariah has a humble and victorious king who cuts off chariots and warhorses. And who dominates from sea to sea.
This certainly seems to imply restoration and yet Luke’s text (as well as all the Gospels) seems to mix in other aspect of the prophetic tradition around the day of the Lord.
Here we have Luke’s Jesus: lamenting like Jeremiah, cursing fig trees, purifying the temple, prophesying the destruction of the city and Israel. In Matthew, Mark, and John the crowds sing “Save us! Save us! Hosanna! Hosanna!” And they decorate the street like they once did for Judas the Hammer!, the Maccabbean that pushed the infidels out of the holy land.
These texts seem to affirm ALL the prophetic traditions concerning the One who is to come, with the cumulative effect of disorientation:
There’s a battle line being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Stop, Listen,
Can anyone tell me what is going down?
Who is this King of Glory?
What is this Kingdom?
And!
How does the Kingdom come about?
Pastor Marilyn Zehr preached on several of the parables from the 15th chapter of Luke last week, including the parable of the lost coin. This story of a widow who earnestly searches for a lost coin is meant to tell us something important about this God that we know in Christ. Among other things, this story as well as the companion parables of the lost son and the lost sheep, tell us about a zealous God desiring to reconcile all things to Godself.
As such, this Christological Widow, in order to find her lost coin,
She takes her time carefully cleaning and sweeping the house, setting everything in place, in order.
This is an image of God that Marilyn Robinson takes up in her book Housekeeping where God, like the Grandmother in her story, mends, restores, rights, orders, works patiently.
The restoring God. The God who works for a shalom that is peace and order and justice. The God that we follow by our acts of patience . . . By our daily incremental works to make the world a little more just, a little more peaceful, a little more humane. A home! A real home for everyone!
And yet, here is Jesus: the home wrecking God. Overturning tables. Killing fruit trees. All the while tossing over his shoulder difficult stories, short answers to hard questions, and condemning people for not understanding them.
A God of Anarchy?
What can stay standing on the day of his appearing?
Seemingly nothing: If we take the total witness of the four gospels together what is left standing after this day of his coming: the sanctity of Roman Justice? Jewish Law? Jerusalem? The temple? Worldly Wisdom? Pragmatic Politicians?
So I return to my question: Who is the King of Glory?
And am I now going to commit that cardinal sin of never getting around to answering my own rhetoric?
I guess.
How can I answer this question? Who am I?
But, our texts for today at least provide a method for answering this question.
Philippians chapter 2 and Luke chapter 19, could these texts be more dissimilar?
Philippians 2 seems to occur outside of time and space. A mysterious text about the inner working of the Godhead …
Luke is firmly attached to time and space. Concretely leading us on the dusty treacherous path from Jericho to Jerusalem…. Steadily up…. Steadily westward …
And yet to the question of how do we know this Christ, they have strikingly similar answers.
For Luke: Do you want to know this King? Follow him. Follow him as he sets his face like flint towards the city that kills the prophets. Follow him as he drinks the bitter cup. In Luke, Jesus is the parable teller inviting his listeners to see themselves in his stories. And Luke too crafts his history into a parable of sort for us. There are people for us to identify with along this long road to Jerusalem– Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon, Hannah, Peter, Judas, Simon of Cyrene, and the Thief on the Cross, Mary Magdalene. And there is the implicit question: Can you follow this Christ all the way to Jerusalem?
Can we hold on? Or will we let go?
Pray that we can hold on to the end? Like Joanna, Mary, Mary and Joseph of Arimithea …. Holding on to Jesus even through the destruction of our deepest hopes, our most holy schemes.
For Paul: Do you want to know Christ? Do you want to take on the Mind of Jesus?
[Paraphrase The Christ Hymn]
Let go! Let go! And hold on to Jesus Christ.
Yes, John, Luke, Matthew, and Paul and have authority when they answer the question: Who is this king of glory? But, this authority does not come only from their historical proximity to the events. Nor does it come from their theological sophistication.
If Paul has special knowledge about Christ it is because just as Christ was willing to be obedient unto death in the great power centre of Jerusalem, Paul was willing to be obedient unto death in the great power centre of Rome.
For even if the New Testament struggles to give us a definitive answer to the question: Who is this King of Glory the writers agree on one thing that Jesus’ glory and his suffering are one and the same!
And now, I will admit that Palm Sunday has always been a frustrating time for me. In my small Wesleyan church with no Good Friday service it felt like we skipped over the entire passion. We moved from the hints of Glory on Palm Sunday straight on to Glory.
This year I have come to terms with the day.
And only one day before I have to preach on it!
Palm Sunday is a time that can remind us that we cannot ever come to Good Friday except through our knowledge of Easter Sunday.
Paul and the four gospel writers may provide different emphases in their vision of Christ but they come together in affirmation that he is the Risen Crucified ONE!
Indeed, I will suggest that the significance of the Triumphal Entry to the life of the church is precisely in the way it points to the glory and glorification of Christ, right before we return once again to the Holy Week—to our memories of Jesus’ suffering and rejection.
Because at Palm Sunday we reset the clock… We reset the stage:
The tables are not yet overturned
Judas has not yet kissed
The Cock has not yet crowed
Simon the Cyrene has not yet carried the cross
Barabas is still in prison
Herod and Pilate have not yet become friends as the text indicates they will on the day they condemn Jesus
The earth has not yet trembled and gone dark
Jesus has not yet died
The women have not yet found the empty tomb
During this Holy Week we are pressed to reenact:
To take the cup
To have our feet washed
To suffer the night
To wait the dawn
To beg that Christ remember us when he comes into his kingdom
And hopefully to glimpse in all of this the King that comes in the name of the Lord
Who is this King of Glory?
See him setting his face like Flint toward Jerusalem.
Who is this King of Glory?
There he is washing his disciples feet!
Who is this King of Glory?
Weeping over Jerusalem
Who is this King of Glory?
See he is high and lifted up on the cross
Lift up your head! Lift up your heart!
The King of Glory!