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March 20, 2005; The Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday, Year A
    The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector

It was a view somewhat like we have out the windows behind the altar, as Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives looking down on Jerusalem located on a smaller hill on the other side of the Kidron Valley.  It was time he thought to himself to make his grand entrance into the Holy City.

He had a decision to make.  How would he enter?  One a great white stallion, symbolic of power, victory, and triumph; or on a donkey, the humblest of animals, a beast of burden and a symbol of peace.  A passage from the prophet Zechariah flashed through his mind, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion, …Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”[1]  Yes, it would be on a donkey, symbol of humbleness and peace.

 After his disciples fetched the animals, he mounted one of them and began his short journey into Jerusalem.  He descended the Kidron Valley passing the Garden of Gethsemane before making the brief ascent to the city gate and into Jerusalem.  The people had gathered outside the walls to welcome Jesus, spreading their cloaks and branches on the road for the donkey to walk on.  It was a royal welcome for the promised Messiah.  They shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!  Blessed is the one who come in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest heaven!”[2]

 What a stark contrast to what happens a few days later.  Jesus was again outside the walls of Jerusalem, this time in the Garden of Gethsemane on the slope of the Mount of Olives.  The jubilation is gone.  Yet for many, for those who participated in the events of that fateful week, and us, what happened next, what is referred to as the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, only makes sense, only has meaning, because we have been so taken, so enamored by Jesus.  He is our King.  They, we, realize that something far greater is taking place than a man being put to death.   It is the mystery of God’s plan of redemption unfolding.

 We know the whole story.  Yet we must pause before we get to Easter and enter into the unsettling Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 Jesus entered Jerusalem a second time.  This time there was no jubilation.  There is a small crowd of Temple guards surrounding Jesus, who has been placed under arrest.  He is pushed through the dark streets to the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest.  Instead of shouts of Hosanna to greet Jesus, the meeting ends with the cry, “He deserves death."[3]

Through all of this his disciples have abandon him.  Instead of walking proudly beside him as on Palm Sunday, none are to be found but Peter lurking in the courtyard,who when confronted denied he ever knew Jesus.

Instead of shouts of “Hosanna,” Jesus is now greeted with shouts of “Crucify him,” as he is paraded before the crowd by Pilate.

Instead of cloaks and branches covering the path that he walked, he is stripped of his own clothes, crowned with a ring of thorns, mocked by the soldiers, “Hail, King of the Jews!”[4] and struck with a branch.

Instead of riding through the Kidron Valley and streets of Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus stumbles through the valley of the narrow streets of Jerusalem carrying his own cross.

Instead of viewing the Holy City from the Mount of Olives, he now sees it from his cross atop a knoll called Golgotha.

Instead of the excitement of a new leader, the King of David, coming to reign, there is the somberness of death.

Who dares to tell this story?  It goes against our natural instinct.  It is the story of shameful things, of evil and sin, of goodness challenged.  It is a story that makes no sense.  Punishment – the death sentence – for being too good?  It can only be told by those who believe.  Those who believe in a love so deep, so sincere, that they are willing to sacrifice themselves.  Can I be so daring as to say that we are that bold?  Jesus did not die for laws or principles.  Jesus died for you and me.  We have to, we must, tell the story of a love so broad, so deep, so high, that it embraces us in the arms of Almighty God.

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