Palm Sunday (Sunday of the Passion)

April 9, 2006
Rev. Dr. Kenneth Wieting
Text: John 12: 15, 17, 18; Mark 15:1-47

Palm branches! A donkey colt to ride on! Shouts of Hosanna (O God, save us)! Why? “The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.” (John 12:17, 18).

Dear Christians, the reason for that first Palm Sunday parade was life from death. For four days the corpse of Lazarus had lain, rotting in a tomb of Bethany. Then Jesus came and cried “Lazarus, come out”. And He did! From stinking corpse to saving sign, Lazarus was full of life again. The people knew it! The Pharisees feared it! The parade for Jesus was on! “They took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

Two thousand years later we are still gathering to join His parade. Is it not a wonder that even this morning there are palm branches and shouts of Hosanna in this place for Him? Is it not a wonder that even now your presence and your voice are joined in the parade? Don’t ever turn back from following Him! The reason is the same, life from death! FEAR NOT, DAUGHTER OF ZION; BEHOLD YOUR KING COMES TO GIVE YOU LIFE!

Oh how we sinners need a King who gives us life! Remember how Israel demanded a king when the prophet Samuel had grown old? They wanted an earthly monarch to lead them in battle against the Philistines. They wanted a king like all the other nations. In that desire and that request Samuel said they were rejecting God as their king (I Sam. 8). Yet God gave them what they clamored for.

Saul was anointed, then King David, then King Solomon, then the kings of the divided kingdom. The reign of some was better and some worse, but generally God sent prophets to speak against their wicked rule. Earthly kings did not meet the deepest needs of the people of God.

The people kept hoping for a special king, a great deliverer, in whom all of the Lord’s promises would be fulfilled. Through the prophet Nathan, God had promised King David that He would raise up his descendent (seed) and establish the throne of His kingdom forever (II Sam 7:12-14). Isaiah spoke of this shoot of the stump of Jesse (Is. 9 and 11). Ezekiel spoke of the kingly, tender twig (17:22). Zechariah, the prophet of hope after the exile, said, “Rejoice greatly, your king comes to you righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey.”

It was written! God had promised a King! From the time of Zechariah decades went by, then centuries! For nearly four hundred years there is little note of hope for a Messianic King. In that period the Romans came and things seemed even worse. Distant Caesar’s and heavy taxation were the order of the day for the people of Israel. Where was their King?

Then one Judean night over the fields of Bethlehem the birth of a Savior was announced by God’s angels. Soon wise men from the east came with a startling question, “Where is He who is born “King of the Jews”? (Mt. 2:2). Herod was so concerned about this infant king that he slaughtered innocent babies trying to cut short his life. In the first months of His life, this little King seemed to bring death to others, not life!

Some thirty years later He began to preach words of freedom and forgiveness. He announced that the kingdom of God came with His presence. He released people from the binding power of sickness and Satan and sin. When He miraculously fed five thousand, the people were filled with so much enthusiasm for him that they attempted to make Him king by force (John 6). But He would not be crowned king to keep bellies full, to meet earthly needs according to our dictates.

That brings us to Palm Sunday and the shouts of the people and His willingness on that day to be hailed as King. The miracles had continued according to His plan, not according to the prescription of the people. His plan included the raising of Lazarus; the restoring of life in the face of death and decay. The people knew of this sign. For the moment enthusiasm was sky high again! “So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

Palm Sunday is about a King who brings life from death. The reason they went out to him was a living, breathing Lazarus. Four days in a tomb! Foul of smell and full of death, he was bursting with life again! Oh, how we need a King who gives us life in this dying, decaying world. All of the little kings we crown for ourselves and within ourselves only give us death. The king of self is dying. Our self-seeking, self-justifying rule leads us away from God. The king of shared family love and closeness cannot get through death. Our warmest sentiments and fondest memories are powerless at the grave. The king of earthly savings and success will disappoint. You cannot take it with you. The shallow king of style and sophistication will decay. The outward form of this world is passing away. The king of scholarly achievement will shrink away. Man by his wisdom does not know God. The king of pleasurable sensations and entertainment will ultimately dissatisfy. We cannot manufacture heaven on earth. All of the little kings we crown for ourselves and within ourselves only give us death. Oh, how we need a King who gives us life! Wondrously, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday signaled restoration of life that far surpassed the raising of Lazarus.

Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt. Palm Sunday is also Passion Sunday. Soon Pilate would ask -”are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “You have said so”. He would later add, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)

Palm Sunday began the week that changed the world. Palm Sunday began the week that brings us life in the midst of death through the death of the King of life. He came into Jerusalem borne by a donkey colt. He went out bearing His cross. He came in to shouts of “Hosanna”. He went out to shouts of “crucify Him, crucify Him.”

Dear Christians, who needs this King? Who needs a king who is shackled and shamed and stripped naked and refuses to do anything about it? Who needs a King who humbles Himself even to death on a cross? Who needs a King who speaks not only of His own cross, but also of the cross and suffering of those who follow Him? Make no mistake, at the center of your heart and my heart by nature is the same desire expressed in the last challenge to Him as king on Good Friday. “Let Christ, the king of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.”

You see, by nature, we will always want a king we can see and a king who will do our bidding. We will always want a king who will take away the cross with its pressures and loneliness and disappointments and death. Our sinful nature will always want a king who will wave a magic wand instead of the King who offers a marvelous sacrifice. But that would be a false king in the crumbling kingdom of this world.

Your true King loves you too much to be turned aside by the enticements of this dying world. Your true King knew full well that the crown awaiting Him in Jerusalem was woven of thorns and not of gold. Your true King rode in to die in your place under your sin receiving your punishment. Purposely He rides. Meekly He rides. Planning a heavenly meal of sacrificial Lamb for you, forward into death’s dark shadow land, He rides.

Your true King now teaches you to pray everyday “Thy kingdom come”. How does God’s kingdom come? When I get my way? When I feel just right? When all my loved ones are safe and healthy? No! “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead a godly life, here in time and hereafter in eternity.”

Is that what you would have King Jesus do for you as you enter Holy Week in the year of our Lord 2006? If you are here seeking His grace to believe His holy word and to lead a godly life, then rejoice! “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he.” Your king comes to you humbly, riding on lowly water and word and bread and wine.

Your King comes to you with forgiveness enough for all your sins, your hidden sins, your silly sins, your big sins, in fact your entire sinful life. This week is His glory! His death is His glory! His cross is His glory! All this is His glory because He glories in giving life to you! Risen from the grave that’s why Your King comes to you today! Risen from the grave that’s why Your King comes to you each week!

Otherwise it is all rather silly isn’t it? Otherwise why are you still in His parade 2000 years after that first Palm Sunday? Otherwise why should we gather this Thursday to receive the New Testament in His blood? Otherwise why should we gather this Friday to meditate on His atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world? Otherwise why should we gather here next week and each week to rejoice in His resurrection and receive His gifts?

The reason is the same! Your true King is not like the kings of earthly nations. This King and only this King brings you life from death. Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold your King comes to bring you life. AMEN.

5th Sunday in Lent

April 2nd, 2006
The Rev. Prof. Chad L. Bird
Text: Mark 10:32-45; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:1-10

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Did I hear the word “new”? Oh, dear, that can’t be good news, can it? In many and various ways God spoke to his people of old by the prophets, and that suited me just fine, thank you. My song is love well-known, so give me some of that old time religion, it’s good enough for me.

Give me Aaron, big brother to Moses, that first high priest who was chosen, called, and appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness. Aaron, beset with weakness? I’d say. While Moses is atop Sinai receiving God’s laws, Aaron is down below breaking them faster than Moses can scribble them down. One Golden Calf coming right up. And when that first commandment falls, you know what happens to the rest of those legal dominoes. Yes, give me Aaron, isn’t he good enough?

Give me bulls, rams, and one-year-old lambs. Not all the blood of beasts, on Jewish altars slain, was ever enough, so keep piling them on. Mute their mooing with that razor-sharp blade, let the blood drip down as the flames leap up, and send smoke signals heavenward beseeching the Lord to be gracious. What God ordains is always good, and all these offerings he himself ordained, so aren’t they good enough?

Yes, they are good enough, quite good enough, at least for those of you who prefer a guilty conscience, stained with sin. Barbeque every beast you can find on that temple altar, and that will be good enough, if you yourself aren’t afraid of the flames. And Aaron, he is good enough too, if you are satisfied with unsatisfaction, if you want a priest who cannot provide perfection, who is just as entangled in sin as you are, who can never get you into heaven but has plenty of connections down below. Yes, the old covenant is quite adequate, if salvation from sin, peace with God, and everlasting life are not really your cup of tea.

But if you desire to drink the cup that Jesus drinks, and to be baptized with the baptism with which he is baptized; if you wish to sit with him on his throne in his Father’s glory; if you want his law within you, written on your heart; if you yearn to know the Lord, to have your iniquity forgiven and your sins remembered no more; if all of that is what you want, then, behold, the days are coming, and have already come, when all these gifts have been granted to you.

The question is: Do you really want them? “Lord, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” So we pray. Or, so we would pray, if in fact we prayed much at all. “And what exactly do you want me to do for you,” Jesus responds. “Grant us to sit, one in a 3000 square foot house, in front of a 52 inch plasma television watching our team trounce their rival. Grant us to sit, another in a 2006, fully loaded, car of our choice heading as far away from Milwaukee as possible. Grant us to sit, one and all, in tranquility, untroubled by the needs of others, by family squabbles, by health problems, by headaches at work, or by anything else that might burst the tiny utopian bubble in which we exist. That’s what we want you to do for us, Lord, ASAP.”

Lord have mercy. Will people never change? Will we always reach over the food God gives to grasp at the poison beyond? Will we always prefer to sip sea water when dying of thirst? Will we always, without fail, risk our own soul to gain whatever it is that we think will satisfy, and once we find it, and even realize how unsatisfying it really is, endanger our soul again to obtain even more?

Repent, O Christians, for after all these things the worldlings eagerly seek, but it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be satisfied, let him drink the cup that Jesus places to his lips, let him be baptized with the baptism with which Christ baptizes him. Let him be served by the Son of Man, who gave his life as a ransom for many, to buy you back from a life that is truly death by dying the death that truly gives you life.

For the Son of Man was delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, condemned to death and delivered over to the Gentiles. They mocked him and spat upon him, flogged him and killed him. And three days later he rose. And in those events heaven will rejoice into eternity, for in them was found that which is much better than good enough.

For in them the Father gave you Jesus, our firstborn Brother, the high priest who came in the order of Melchizedek. This King of righteousness clothes you in his own regal robes. This King of peace makes you a citizen of the New Jerusalem above. He meets you, the sons of Abraham, the soldiers of the church militant, to refresh you with a meal of bread and wine—a bread of His own flesh, to enliven your bodies with His own life, a wine of His own blood, to assuage your thirst for absolution. He does not, like Aaron and his sons, first have to offer sacrifices for his own sins, and then for those of you, but once for all and one for all, he offered up himself. He drank the bitter waters of Marah from the cup of woe, drained every drop upon that tree appointed by God; and in so doing he sweetened that liquid, turned that water into wine, and emptied his veins into the chalice that you might drink of the river of the wine of life that flows from him, the Rock of Ages. He was baptized in the Deluge of wrath and buried in the waters of the Red Sea, but rose again from that abyss to be for you the ark of salvation, to part the waters and lead you safely across, to wash away the leprosy of your sin that you might be created anew in his own image and likeness.

Let us fix our eyes on this Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our Faith, who has done everything not only “good” but “very good.” Him the Father gives us, better than Aaron; better than bulls, rams, and one-year-old lambs; better than anything this world could possibly offer. For in him, the source of eternal salvation, we gain entrance into the Holy of Holies, the celestial Eden, where life is truly as life was meant to be.