Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "A Red Carpet Entrance to Holy Week "
Date: March 25, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Luke 19:28-40

I’m not going to ask how many of you tuned in with me to watch the 79th Annual Academy Awards show on February 25.  At least, here on the west coast, it ends at a decent time—some four-plus hours after it began—just after 9 p.m.  Back when I watched it in New York, it was always past midnight.  I would agree that the show drags on about an hour too long, especially as they present the most notable awards last.  I certainly could have done without Ellen Degeneres coming out near the end to vacuum the carpet in front of Jack Nicholson and other luminaries sitting in the front row.

Of course, truth be told, it isn’t the show itself that all the buzz is about.  It’s the several hours before-hand when the stars make their red carpet entrance.  Interviewers thrust microphones into celebrity faces and ask stupid questions, to which they usually receive lukewarm and reputation-safe answers.  The next day’s newspaper devotes some space to articles about the winners, but they include colored pages of what everyone wore on the red carpet. 

Glitter… glamour… gossip.  Seems we just can’t get enough.

But it’s really nothing new.  A red carpet entrance occurred in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday long ago.  In fact, not one entrance, but two!

It was the beginning of the week of Passover, a tinderbox time in the city, with the Jewish people celebrating divine deliverance from suffering under the past Egyptian Empire while they lived under the present Roman Empire.  Two very large and very lethal riots took place precisely at Passover in the generations before and after the year 30 in the first century.  And so, at each Passover, the Roman governor—Pilate in the time of Jesus—rode up to Jerusalem from the imperial capital Caesarea on the coast at the head of a cohort of imperial cavalry and troops to reinforce the Roman garrison in Jerusalem as a deterrent against and preparation for any possible trouble.  Pilate’s procession, arriving from the west, symbolized and actualized Roman imperial power.  Nothing like bringing out the tanks, the missiles and the soldiers to indicate who’s got the power.

Meanwhile, in a story more familiar to us, Jesus entered the city from the east in another procession, a counterprocession.  Whereas Pilate rode into the city on a war horse, Jesus entered on a donkey that has never been ridden.  Luke makes it clear that Jesus planned it in advance:  he tells two of his disciples to go into a village to get a donkey and says, “If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

The contrast is clear:  Jesus versus Pilate, the nonviolence of the kingdom of God versus the violence of empire.  Two arrivals, two red carpet entrances, two processions.  A major event was underway, a Passover Festival that drew about two-and-a-half million pilgrims to Jerusalem.  You could say without too much exaggeration that the city was electrified with Oscar-night enthusiasm. 

Jesus was aware of this, and knew exactly what he was getting into.  He might well have come into Jerusalem for other Passover observations over the years, but this year was different.  He expected a hero’s welcome this Palm Sunday, but he also knew how this was all going to turn out by the end of this week.  He had been alluding to it for weeks, to the dismay of his sometimes-unbelieving disciples.  What they say about Hollywood celebrities was probably true in Jerusalem as well:  “People in Hollywood are always touching you—not because they like you, but because they want to see how soft you are before they eat you alive.”

The point of Palm Sunday is that the Celebrity Christ is given the red carpet treatment as he enters Jerusalem.  All the expected elements are in place:  He makes a royal entrance, in a procession associated with powerful kings and conquering generals.  He is escorted by the citizens of Jerusalem and “the whole multitude of the disciples”.  They throw down their cloaks in front of him, wave palm branches, praise him for his deeds of power, and sing hymns of acclamation, crying out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven”.  He rides on a colt, on the foal of a donkey, just as King Solomon did before his coronation — although Jesus’ choice of a donkey could also mean that he is a bringer of peace.  If Jesus wanted a fight, he would have charged in on a stallion, a war horse, the first-century equivalent of a Hummer.

So Jesus is a superstar, complete with glitter, glamour and gossip.  He’s got the glitter of a royal entrance, the glamour of waving palm branches, and even the gossip associated with his disciples and the borrowed colt.  There is a lot of buzz about this celebrity superstar as he enters the Holy City to pick up his prize.

But here’s the twist:  His prize is a cross — and he knew it.

Like modern celebrities, Jesus is not only idolized, he is also picked apart. He’s feeling the love on Sunday; feeling the disappointment on Monday and the rage on Friday.  The machinery that kills him on Friday begins to operate on Sunday.  As the disciples sing praises, the Pharisees begin to shout, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”  But Jesus refuses to do this, replying, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out”.

From this point on, the chatter about Jesus becomes increasingly negative.  People sense that he is not interested in driving out the oppressive Romans.  They notice that he travels with a band of unarmed disciples, not a cell of terrorist operatives, as did Barabbas, for example.  They hear him speak of coming wars and persecutions, not of glorious victories and times of prosperity.  The chief priests, scribes and leaders of the people start to look for a way to kill Jesus (19:47), and by the end of the week the people themselves are shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” (23:21).  Luke tells us that the Roman governor can find no ground for the sentence of death, but the crowd keeps demanding that Jesus should be crucified . “The crowd” from Sunday may have been with Jesus throughout the week, preventing the authorities from taking action.  Yet it is a different and much smaller crowd that calls for his crucifixion on Good Friday.  That crowd gathered in Pilate’s courtyard, and ordinary people had no access to it.  In the end, the governor grants their wish to those who cried, “Crucify him!” (23:22-25)

Jesus is killed on Friday because he fails to live up to human fantasies and expectations.  Some speculate that Judas’ act of betrayal was to force Jesus’ hand, to get him to be the political warrior some people wanted.

Because our Lenten cantata has been presented on Palm Sunday for the last dozen years, I have not preached a Palm Sunday sermon since 1995.  In a way, that was alright with me, for I have always found the festivities of the Palm Sunday parade somewhat hollow and awkward.  How can a celebrity be so hyped on a Sunday, but totally out of favor by the end of the week; so much so that this particular celebrity was put to death?

Jesus was never interested in glitter, glamour and gossip, but he was interested in grace, giving and goodness.

We are saved “by grace” (Ephesians 2:8).  It is Jesus’ love and charity that makes it possible for us to live in a “state of grace.”  We are children of grace, and but for that grace, only God knows where we’d be.

He was all about giving.  He gave of himself.  He who was rich became poor that we might be rich.  He gave until there was no more to give.

He was all about goodness.  The essential goodness of Jesus, unparalleled by anyone before him or after him, testifies to the life to which we are called.  When he saw the crowds as sheep not having a shepherd, he was moved with compassion — he became almost physically sick, so great was his love.

We’ve given Jesus the palm branch treatment today, but let’s not make this a one Sunday wonder.  We know what happens in the week ahead before we gather in this place again next Sunday.  Jesus’ grace, his giving and his goodness, in spite of the suffering and death he endured on the cross, compel us to change our behavior, not just stand idly by waving palms.

 

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I have been aided in my sermon preparation by two sources:

Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan, “Collision Course:  Jesus’ Final Week,”  Christian Century, March 20, 2007, pp. 27-31. 

“Palm Branches and Red Carpets,” Homiletics, Henry G. Brinton, senior writer, April 2004, pp. 47-51.