Palm Sunday Sermon (2026)

Palm Sunday Sermon

See below for the sermon from Palm Sunday, based on Matthew 21:1-11

2015 Palm Sunday Sermon

2015 Palm Sunday Sermon
Mark 11:1-11
Isaiah 51:1-8

Life is different in the south.  For starters, it’s rarely 20 degrees outside in March.  I’ll be honest—I miss that.  I was away on spring break last week and returned late last Sunday night.  I was standing outside waiting for an airport shuttle at 11 pm in shorts while it was 30 degrees spending my time questioning the life choices I had made. 

There’s another important distinction, though, one that you don’t fully understand until you live in the south.  It’s called kudzu, and it’s everywhere.  I can’t overestimate this- it’s everywhere.  They don’t call it ‘the vine that ate the south’ without reason.  Most of the hillsides in the south are blanketed by this fast-growing invasive species that devours trees, power lines, hills, houses, and whatever gets in the way.  Kudzu is estimated to cover 7 million acres, an area roughly the size of New Mexico.  Most southern cities dedicate substantial resources to stopping it, but the best methods I heard about, involving gasoline and matches, were still not guaranteed to be successful.  Out of 12 known herbicides, 10 have no effect while the other 2 make it grow faster.  Chattanooga hired some goats to work on a hillside by a vital tunnel, but their chances of success were minimal, considering that kudzu can grow up to a foot in a day. 

The amazing part of all of this is that kudzu was actually planted by the US government in the 1930s in the hopes of preventing soil erosion.  Farmers were paid to plant kudzu in the hopes that such a program would save the soil.  The good news is that we still have the soil.  The bad news is that we can’t find it under the kudzu.

It’s not terribly uncommon for us to commit to something without understanding the full implications of it. 

Don’t tell my wife I said this, but it’s somewhat like having children.  Before kids, you think you have a pretty good handle on what it’s like to have children, as you imagine playing ball or encouraging your kid to try something new at school.  Later, as you read Go Dog Go for the10th straight time through bleary eyes and hearing damaged from constant screaming, you wonder at the fact that you were so wrong in what you imagined parenting would be like.

When we arrive at Palm Sunday, I can’t help but think of this celebration in the same light.  For centuries, Jews have waited for the Messiah to arrive.  When he arrived, he was to liberate Jerusalem and the Jewish people from under the rule of their oppressors.  He was to establish his kingdom in Jerusalem and rule from there.  The people had definite opinions about what this would be like, and when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt, they are certain that the kingdom they expect is about to begin.  Rome is soon to be defeated, and the earthly kingdom will begin momentarily.  All their expectations will be fulfilled.

Except, well, it didn’t work out quite like they had imagined.  Jesus didn’t defeat the Roman army.  Jerusalem was still occupied.  Jesus’ rule was very different than they had imagined it might be.  As a result, they turned on Jesus.  The crowd that was shouting Hosanna on Sunday was soon to be shouting ‘Crucify Him’.  The ones welcoming him with joy were condemning him in spite.  Because Jesus didn’t live up to their expectations, the crowds turned against him and rejected his very presence.  If he was not to be the Messiah they expected, they had no use for him.

The question for us, then, is why is there such a disconnect between reality and expectations?  And does such a disconnect still exist today?  If so, what can we do about it?

The answer to the first question is immensely complicated.  It’s rooted in the pages of the Old Testament, the history of the Israelites and how they came to Jerusalem.  The journey makes its way through Egypt and 40 years of wandering in the Promised Land, and soon the people take hold of the land, and they make their homes there. 

Unfortunately, they are not alone.  They are buffeted by the forces at work around their kingdom, and pretty soon they notice that they are the only kingdom without a king.  Now, they have the all-powerful God as their king, but this is not enough—they want a king they can see, a king they can touch, a king they can follow into battle.  So God agrees, and they get a king. 

As you may know, human kings aren’t perfect.  They make mistakes, sometimes small and sometimes grievous.   The kingdom is soon rocked and rolled from the inside as much as the outside, and turmoil chases the people through the centuries, until they find themselves as subjects of the Roman Empire, desperately waiting for the day when God will defeat the Romans and establish an earthly kingdom.  This is how they understand the promise—they read the Old Testament prophecies through the lens of what their hearts desire, which is an earthly kingdom.  The problem is that our hearts can deceive us.  Our hearts can be tricked, and the Father of Lies spends a lot of time leading our hearts astray, letting our eyes focus on worldly things, and when we base our desires here and read Scripture from that place, we make Scripture say whatever we want, and pretty soon our hopes are set on promises that are understood differently than how God intended them to be.

Thus, when God lives into the promises he made, we have invested such time and energy misunderstanding them and building a false theology around our wrong understandings that we see the promise and reject it, preferring something we can wrap our minds and hearts around instead.  We trade in the eternal for the mortal, and think we are happier.

In welcoming the Messiah on Palm Sunday, the first century Jews thought they were welcoming a conquering hero.  When he conquered the wrong kingdom, death instead of Rome, they rejected him, preferring instead to keep looking for someone who could deliver them from Rome, not recognizing the riches they were forgoing by opting out of deliverance from sin and death. 

Does this still happen today?  Are people ever led into Christianity thinking one thing, then discovering that the faithful life is actually very different?  You can certainly decide on your own.  I’d certainly say yes.

I’d say there are churches who proclaim that belief in God will deliver earthly riches, when in fact God promises to deliver riches that far surpass whatever gold and silver can buy.  I’d say there are churches who promise health and healing, when in fact sometimes prayers go unanswered, and sometimes healing only happens on the other side of death.  I’d say there are churches who promise that happiness will overwhelm them every day of their life, when the Bible portrays an early church that struggled with conflict and oppression despite their faithful witness.  I’d say there are churches who proclaim that Christianity is easy, when in fact our Savior asks that everything be given over to him, each and every day, and that faithful discipleship takes discipline and endurance.  I’d say there are churches who promise peace, but in fact our churches are often filled with discord and strife as we wrestle with big questions and difficult decisions.

If we try and sell the church as a place where everything is easy and we don’t ask much, then inevitably we will disappoint people when they recognize how challenging the faithful life is.

So I believe that we, in the church, have two primary responsibilities.

The first is to read the Scriptures on our own.  If we do this, then we gain knowledge of how God has worked in the past for ourselves.  We aren’t simply being spoonfed, and our knowledge of the faithful life is not dependent on someone else.  When we are reading for ourselves, we can recognize the common distortions of Christianity and work to help non-believers have a more accurate understanding of how the faithful life of discipleship isn’t an easy path to riches but a long, slow call to endurance that traverses peaks and valleys and reaches fullness only upon passing through the veil of death.  By knowing this for ourselves and communicating it to others, we lessen the chances of disappointing those with distorted understandings of what Christianity means.

Secondly, we have a responsibility to wait patiently on God.  God has always done unexpected things, from the moment he freely created the universe from nothing to the time he entered into creation and took the punishment of death for guilty mankind.  God’s grace is unexpected and cannot be grasped by our minds.  When we live in a place of permanent dependence on God, we haven’t made up our minds beforehand, but we live with open minds and hearts about what God might be doing.  We wake each day with a renewed sense of amazement at what God might accomplish, and when we haven’t decided beforehand what God should do, we’re free to be amazed at all the ways God is at work around us, and our feet aren’t chained to a preset path—we can follow wherever God might lead, and worship as we go.  We won’t be disappointed when God calls us into something new.  We can only be amazed that the God who faithfully has lived up to every promise will continue to walk with us in the light of grace and renew us each and every day.

Let us pray

Sermon for Palm Sunday, 4-13-14

Mark 11:1-11 
Common English Bible (CEB) 

  11 When Jesus and his followers approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Jesus gave two disciples a task, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘Its master needs it, and he will send it back right away.’”
   4 They went and found a colt tied to a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. 5 Some people standing around said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They told them just what Jesus said, and they left them alone.
  7 They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes upon it, and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread out their clothes on the road while others spread branches cut from the fields. 9 Those in front of him and those following were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!”
  11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. After he looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he returned to Bethany with the Twelve.

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I'm sure you've noticed all the campaign signs around us this time of the year. We're all aware of different races for positions here in Hamilton County. In a few short months, campaigns for the fall elections will kick into high gear, and it won't be too long until the race for the 2016 presidential campaign is in non-stop mode. We'll be hearing constant analysis of who had lunch in Iowa and who might or might not run. It gets to be a little much.

Think about a presidential election, though, whether it's the last one or the next one. When it comes to presidential elections, we all have an expectation. When we think about our preferred candidate, we have a certain expectation about what life will be like if that person is elected. We expect that they will help our country prosper and that we, as a part of that, will prosper, too. We expect that we'll have more money, be healthier and happier and have a better job in a better economy. We expect all these things from our president, and from all our elected leaders. We expect them to make this life better now. When they don't, we're disappointed and vent about it on Facebook.

The problem is that we use these same expectations when we think about Jesus Christ. The first century Jews certainly did.

It's a bit strange when you stop and think about it. Jesus Christ was the Messiah that the Jews had been waiting centuries for. The last thing you would expect would be for them to shout for his crucifixion when he came to save them. They were longing for his presence, because they were laboring until the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire. They understood that the Messiah would come and liberate them from the Romans. They expected that he would come and raise an army, if he didn't come with an angelic army, and then drive the Romans from their homeland. He would then institute his kingdom, and they would all be healthy, wealthy and happy for the rest of their lives.

For many of us, we have started to expect this from Christianity. We expect that Jesus will make us happy, that he comes to make us healthy and wealthy. It just seems natural that if we follow Jesus, our lives in the here and now will be better off.

So we need to talk about how Jesus did not live up to the expectations of the Jews. And then we need to talk about how he might not live up to our expectations.

Friends, when we talk about the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we're talking about an event that may have misled the crowds. Jesus had spent 3 years disappointing those who expected the Messiah to come and overthrow the rule of Rome. He's spent three years disappointing those who expected him to set up his throne in the temple and rule from on high. Jesus spent three years wandering the dusty roads of the greater Jerusalem metropolitan area, healing lepers and casting out demons. They make for amazing stories, but these are not the sort of displays of power that the people wanted to see. They were amazed, and some believed, but many others, including much of the leadership, expected something grander out of Jesus, something that demonstrated power in this world, something that would elevate their lives and the lives of those around them. They wanted to see some material displays.

But Jesus wasn't here to make people powerful. He wasn't here to overthrow the Roman Empire. He was after something much greater than that.

See, Jesus' Kingdom is one that will last forever. Of his kingdom, there will be no end. So the Roman empire isn't exactly a big threat. In fact, our entire lives are not very long when compared with the time frame of eternity. So Jesus' first priority isn't to make sure that we're all happy and comfortable here. Jesus' biggest priority is to rescue people from their sins, to turn their hearts away from the false idols that have been deceiving them and back to the God who created them and loves them and wants to spend eternity with them. In order to deliver us from sins, to purchase us back from the domain of sin and death, a price needs to be paid. You can't redeem a people from sin without a sacrifice, and the only acceptable sacrifice to sin is one that hasn't yet experienced sin. Enter, Jesus Christ, Son of God, wholly God and wholly man, who is able to be that sacrifice. In doing so, he buys us back from sin and death, redeeming us, and making it possible for us to live with God forever. The God who cannot dwell with sin can now dwell with us, because in Christ we no longer are subject to sin and death.

Christ is doing something so much more than building an earthly kingdom, but so much of it is beyond what the eye can see. Because of that, because it wasn't a tangible kingdom that could be read about in the newspapers and easily understood in a world where money and power are the two primary currencies, the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus. They had him killed, confidant he was a fraud, because he wasn't living up to their expectations.

When Jesus rides into Jerusalem, people gather and worship because they think that this may be the moment when he transforms his movement into a political steamroller, changing the world forever. Well, Jesus changes the world, but not in the way these folks imagined. Their disappointment led to anger, and their anger was poured out upon him, and as his blood was poured out, their sins were forgiven, and the door to eternal life was thrown open, that all who believe may enter in.

So let's talk about our own expectations. There is a lot of really bad theology out there, and while we don't turn to Jesus in anger when our expectations aren't met, I think we can easily wind up disappointed, and this can lead us to indifference.

There is a loud choir of Christians out there claiming that following Jesus will make you healthy, wealthy and happy in this life. It's often called the prosperity Gospel, because we think that Jesus came to make us prosperous. This is often done by taking certain passages of Scripture, including things Jesus said, and focusing on them alone. We can believe that if we pray hard enough, if we submit long enough, God will notice and give us prosperity in some form the world can understand. We have this idea that we need to be able to see it, to grasp it, to call it a blessing. We have the idea that, if we are sick, Jesus will heal us if we pray hard enough, and that if we aren't being healed, we simply aren't praying hard enough.

Friends, Jesus Christ called us to imitate him. He also rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, knowing that he was riding to his eventual death. He lived a hard life, and he suffered at the hands of sin and opposition. He was not wealthy, and he died young, despite being perfect.

Now, if we expect that Christianity will make things easier, what happens is that we become disappointed when following Christ doesn't yield material benefits. When we are sick and are not healed, we become disappointed. We wonder if God's love is actually real, if God really cares for us, if God notices us. We distance ourselves from the God who disappoints us, and in so doing we stop paying attention to him. It's not outright rejection, but it is a rejection in that we choose to lavish our attention and resources on material things that reward us more immediately. We opt for short-term pleasure, exchanging long-term growth in Christ because of how distant and intangible it seems.

The Christian life, when lived faithfully, is one of sacrifice and challenge. We're called consistently to turn away from the temptations of the world. God isn't interested in seeing you prosper just for the sake of your comfort. God blesses us so that we might bless others. God calls us so that we might call others. God calls us out of comfort into growth, into challenge, into new life. It's not easy, and if we believe that it will be easy, we'll be very, very disappointed.

So may we embrace Christ for who he is, rather than who our humanity wants him to be. May we expand our understandings and expectations to recognize that the kingdom he is establishing is beyond what we can grasp or understand in this world, and that reality should call us to let go of our ideas of prosperity and recognize that true prosperity lies only in the arms of God, who alone can meet our any and every need. In him do we find rest. Let us trust completely the God we find in all of Scripture, who reaches out to save and to love. Let us pray