Sermon (Homily) at All Saint’s
Church, Whiteparish - Palm Sunday
– Sunday 9th April 2017
Isaiah
50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew
26:1-27:66
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation
of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord. Amen
Traditionally on
Palm Sunday, and again on Good Friday, churches throughout the length and
breadth of the country will act out the Passion Narrative in a manner somewhat
similar to how we have done it this morning.
On Good Friday, it seems natural and obvious that the Gospel reading
should indeed be a narrative of the second most significant and important event
in the Christian calendar, the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus Christ; but
even as a child I found it quite disturbing and strange that on Palm Sunday we
should do so after also re-enacting Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem on
a humble colt or donkey, with the crowds feting him with palms as some great
hero – indeed, it would probably be like a famous actor or pop star suddenly
appearing in Whiteparish or more likely if a member of the Royal Family was to
suddenly appear here for a service at All Saints. There would be much flag waving and cheering
and people jostling to get a glimpse of the Queen or Royal person as she
entered or passed through the village and then turning on them and wanting to
kill them.
Palm Sunday was just like
that – a popular hero of the people – the person whom many thought was the
Messiah who would come to rid the occupying forces of the Romans – come to
claim his rightful crown in Jerusalem.
They shouted “Hosanna” a form of acclamation or praise which derives
from two Hebrew words “yasha” to
deliver and save and “anna” meaning “I beg or I beseech” – the two words put
together literally meaning “I beg you to
save us or deliver us”. Indeed he
had but not in the way they expected. I
found it disturbing back then because it pained me to think that such an
adoring crowd could, five days later, be baying for his blood rather than that
of Barabbas, the terrorist murderer.
Stainer’s great
oratorio, The Crucifixion, has the piece “Fling Wide the Gates” – a piece I
remember well performing in my local church in Lincolnshire as a treble
chorister many many years ago. I
remember the words really well to this day:
“Fling Wide the Gates! Fling Wide the Gates!
For the Saviour Waits to tread in his Royal Way
He has come from above in his power and love
To die on this Passion Day”
Today we walked in
procession from the Village Hall to the Church with a donkey with us. Jesus deliberately chose a donkey as his
means of transport to make his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. Kings would usually ride on splendid horses
to denote their power and authority and to strike an imposing figure to all who
saw them – just as the Queen, if she did pass through Whiteparish is likely to
be in a splendid limo not a humble Nissan Micra or similar vehicle. Jesus, by riding on a donkey, a humble
everyday person’s mode of transport, was seeking to display his humility and be
seen as a simple person like all those feting him – not a great King who had
come to regain Jerusalem from the Romans.
His destiny was much greater and far more reaching although it would be
hard to understand until after Easter Sunday.
Every year we tell
this story – of Jesus’s triumphant entry and then his trial and execution. Jesus arrived as did many others in Jerusalem
to celebrate the most important Jewish Festival of Passover – a celebration to
remember how the Jewish people had been spared from the the final plague which
God brought upon those living in Egypt at the time of the Captivity – the death
of all the first born which finally led to their release. The people probably thought that Jesus had
chosen this time to release them from their enslavement by the Romans – how
appropriate would that have been I daresay they thought.
As we know, and as
we shall find out again on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Jesus came to
liberate his people and us in a far greater way – to be the sacrificial lamb
for all our sins and to give us direct access to God through personal prayer
and the Holy Spirit.
The story is, or
should be so familiar to all of us who are Christians and we should hear it and
tell it as often as we can so important is its message.
C.S. Lewis,
writing as a literary critic, once proposed a test for good writing. It was a simple question “How often does it deserve to be read?” Cheap magazine stories, he suggested, come at
the bottom of the pile – once read and when you know what is going to happen,
you discard them, like newspaper articles used to become tomorrow’s fish and
chip paper - and the great novels and plays are at the top. There are people who read through the
complete works of Shakespeare once every year.
Measured this way the Passion Narrative must score very highly. The
action is swift and the dialogue terse and pregnant. Dozens of human cameos –
Jesus, Pilate, Peter, Judas, Barabbas, Caiaphas, Simon, the criminals – each
one carefully playing an important part.
In Ignatian Bible
Study, the student places himself inside the story as one of the characters or
as an eye witness observer at the place or event. It’s a wonderful way of getting to grips with
exactly what is going on within the biblical text and reaching a feeling of
empathy with a character. For example,
poor Peter, would you have done the same as him? Would you have denied Jesus three times in circumstances
where your great mate and master had been arrested and was facing a death
penalty? Hopefully, those of you who
walked with us this morning in procession with palms and saying hosanna did indeed feel you were part of
the story.
But the most
exciting thing of all is that, in fact we were and we still are an integral part
of the story for as Christians we have accepted Jesus into our lives for what
he did for us during this Holy Week culminating in his cruel death and
resurrection. Something he did with
humility and dignity and love – as the Apostle Peter puts it in our reading
from his letter to the Philippians:
“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.”
[Phil. 2:5-8]
“Let the same mind
be in you”. What a great phrase and what
a wonderful ambition for us all to achieve. Through compassion, humility and
dignity we can show ourselves to have true empathy and connections with our
fellow humans, and especially with God our Creator through Jesus Christ and the
Holy Spirit.
Amen
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