“The Last Hurrah”
As Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, he knew exactly what he was doing, and what he was up against.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, March 24, 2002
Text: Matthew 21:1-17
I think it is fair to say that most great stories throughout the ages have had within them a degree of conflict between opposing forces. By conflict I do not necessarily mean resorting to violence, or to tyranny, or oppression, or the subjugation of one of the parties. I mean that there exists within great stories a tension between conflicting forces and that most great stories (though not all) have that degree of tension at their very core. It is that core that very often draws the reader, or the viewer, or the storyteller to the story itself.
In the last couple of weeks I have been rereading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I confess I haven't seen the movie yet so I have no opinion on who should win the Oscar tonight, but I have gone back and read the book that I read some 20-odd years ago.
As I read it, it reminds me that at the very heart of this story again is a conflict: that humanity has to struggle with the temptations of power, and the only way that humanity can handle power is with love, and benevolence, and courage, and steadfastness; that the only way the weak in the story of the Rings, the hobbits of the Shire, can be protected is through courage and through love; that these are in fact the greatest forces and are indeed humanity's only hope.
This is true even in rather benign stories, like The Sound of Music, for example. You can't get much more benign than that, can you? And yet at the heart of this there is a conflict between the Von Trapps and the Nazis. There is a tension between Maria and the Baroness. There is, even in that story, a sense of conflict, of forces working against each other.
The great wonder, I think, of so many of Shakespeare's pieces, such as Othello, is conflict. Where would Othello be without Iago? You cannot really take a great story and not find at the heart of it, certainly in most cases, a tension and a conflict between opposing forces.
That is one of the reasons why the Bible, and particularly the stories of the Old Testament, have had such an allure and such a hold on people, even if you don't look at them as a matter of faith. Whether it is the conflict between Moses and Pharaoh, whether it is the conflict between the wisdom of Deborah and Sisera, whether it is between Elijah and the prophets of Baal, or whether it is the classic David and Goliath, the Scriptures are full of stories of conflict. They hold you and you take sides and you want good to win and you feel that you are involved in the story and in the protagonists' lives.
Well, the story that we have this morning from the New Testament is one of the greatest and most classical of all stories of conflict. It is a conflict between Jesus of Nazareth and the spirit, the life, the oppression that was existing in the city of Jerusalem. The thing that strikes me most about it, and I've read it in every gospel and there are different nuances in all the gospels, is that on Palm Sunday Jesus deliberately and resolutely sets the stage and lets the story unfold: that Jesus comes into Jerusalem deliberately, knowing what he is going to face. He actually sets up the story right from the very beginning. The story is, in fact, under his control.
This is not the story of some cosmic forces, a dualism of Good and Evil clashing in the heavens, as some have suggested. Jesus isn't swept along by forces over which he has no control in this particular moment. On the contrary, Jesus brings the disciples together and gives them very strict instructions about what he is to do and how he is to do it. This is not a cosmic story of the battle of Good and Evil that is so often shown on television shows.
Nor is this, as other have suggested, a sign of a God who is enforcing his will on the world. There is no sense that this is a sovereign God who is just imposing his will by means of force. On the contrary, what we find here is the story of God coming into the midst of Jerusalem in a humble manner. This isn't a Jesus who acts as a despot to impose his will. This is a Jesus who understands that born out of his humility, out of his very self-giving love, the forces that he is opposing will ultimately be conquered and defeated. This is God working not from above, but from below.
This is what makes this story so profound: that Jesus of Nazareth has deliberately set this up because it is his will, his desire, to follow what the Father wishes and for the reign of God to come about.
What is striking also about this story is the setting: We read that Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives sits across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem. It is higher than all the buildings in Jerusalem, so from there Jesus sees a panorama before his eyes.
He looks out onto this beloved city of Zion into which he is about to enter and he knows in his heart that if he enters this city things will unfold, forces will come into play, that will actually counteract what he is trying to do. He knows that.
He also knows that within the city there is a heat of Messianic fervour; that the people of Jerusalem and Israel have lived under the cloud of oppression of the Romans. They have lived under the force of one regime after another keeping them down. The people in Jerusalem, like caged animals who long to be let out, really are roaring. They are hoping that Jesus the Messiah is coming to liberate the oppressed, once and for all. And so he knows that the moment he enters through the gate into Jerusalem that fervour will be heightened and he will be starting something that he probably will not be able to stop.
In the minds and in the hearts of the people in Jerusalem, I think it is fair to say that when they saw Jesus entering they were thinking back to another era, some 160 years before, during the Maccabean revolt, when Judas Maccabeus and after him Simon Maccabeus came into the city to take it over from the source of spiritual and ecclesiastical oppression. When Jesus rode in, when the people sang Hosanna, they were saying two things.
First of all, they were saying that this was the acclamation of Jesus, that this was the recognition that the Messiah had come, and they were giving him praise and glory. But also, in the spirit of Psalm 118 and in the real meaning of the word they also are crying out: "Save us! Please save us!" Hosanna!
In their hearts and in their minds there was, then, a great sense of expectation when Jesus came into the city, for Jesus did not come as they expected him; and when he came and met them he found, secondly, that he was being challenged.
In many ways Jesus not only initiates the story of Palm Sunday, but also actually pushes the agenda. It had become very clear to him over three years of ministry that he is going to face a terrible demise. By coming into Jerusalem on that day and getting on that donkey, he was saying: "All right then, let's get on with what needs to be done," because he knew that he was going to be standing against forces that were going to oppose him.
The mightiest force that was going to oppose him was the force of Rome. Oh, they said they had tried to impose the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, but they weren't doing that at all. They had given Israel some freedom, its leaders some latitude, but deep down they were oppressing them; they were taxing them; they were forcing them to submit to the will of the emperor. With every succeeding year that the Romans had control of Palestine, that oppression and that rule became all the stronger.
Jesus knew then that they were setting up a kingdom, a reign that had nothing to do with the will of his father, that their kingdom was a kingdom of power and of might and of majesty and of force. This was not the Kingdom of God, as far as Jesus was concerned.
He also knew that some of the religious leaders were using even religion itself as a form of oppression. He knew that they were actually keeping people out of the kingdom, out of the reign of God.
That is why he healed the blind man - to show that the blind had a place within the kingdom. That is why he converted and even cavorted with sinners, in order that they might be brought into the kingdom.
That is why he was with the lepers and the unclean - because he knew that they needed to be in the kingdom. It was why he was with the poor and the outcast, with the Gentiles, with you and me - in order that we might be in the kingdom, for he knew that he was coming in and bringing an entirely radical, different view of the reign of God than that which was being espoused in society.
But he knew that he had to come into this world and into this city for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of the reign of God. But unlike the powers, unlike the principalities that were ruling the city of Jerusalem into which he was about to ride, Jesus was coming in peace and in reconciliation and in holiness.
And so the way in which Jesus responded to the challenge, the way that Jesus entered this setting, was profoundly different from the spirit of the world.
Matthew, in particular, goes to great lengths to tell us that Jesus rode on a donkey, on the colt of an ass, on a beast that had never been ridden before. In Greek they called this the hypozygia, a beast of burden: not a beast that you would ride if you were a Maccabean leading a revolt, but if you were a Messiah, bringing in the reign of God.
Just as in Judges 5 we find the king coming in peace, riding on a donkey and as was foreseen by Zechariah, Jesus came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. He said to Jerusalem, and its powers: "All right, here I am. The Kingdom of God is arriving and it is coming humbly and it is coming gently and it is coming on a donkey." This was true humility.
There is a wonderful story told of Johann Sebastian Bach. After he had played a great organ piece one of the people who had been listening came up to him and said: "What is your secret? How do you do it? Why are you so great?"
He said: "Look, all I do is hit the right note at the right time. The organ does the rest."
Jesus was hitting the right note at the right time. He would let the Father do the rest. This was true humility.
But don't misunderstand this humility. This is not some sort of obsequious, meek and mild humility. This isn't the type of humility that isn't willing to face the challenge. Indeed, at the beginning of his ministry, during the temptations, Jesus faced many forces that could have given him this kingdom, could have given him this city, if only he was willing to be tempted. But throughout the whole of his ministry, right to his very death, he knew the cost that would have to be born for such things.
Also, this was not somebody who was trying to be falsely modest.
There is a magnificent story of Augustus Rowland, who was a distinguished professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University. He was once asked to be an expert witness in a trial and in the cross-examination the lawyer said to him: "Now then, Dr. Rowland, can you tell us what makes you an expert witness on this subject?"
Dr. Rowland said: "Without any question, unequivocally, I have the greatest knowledge of this subject on earth."
One of his friends came to him afterwards and, realizing that he hadn't been demonstrating his usual humility, said: "What on earth possessed you to say that?"
Rowland said: "You must remember I was under oath."
Well, Jesus was under oath. There was no false humility. He knew that he was coming into this situation as the Son of God. He knew he was going to bear the sins of the world. He knew that he would face forces that would take his life, but he did it willingly and he did it humbly.
You see, Jesus of Nazareth knew what all teachers of children know: that you can't beat goodness into people by knocking out badness. Goodness is something that must come from within and must come from the heart.
In taking on the powers of this world, in taking on the principalities and the kingdoms that were keeping the people down with oppression, Jesus knew that it was only through the force of love, only through the power of humility, only in self- giving that the weak could be saved.
And so I challenge you this Palm Sunday, on this, Jesus' Last Hurrah before the week that was to unfold, the last time that the crowds were to praise him and have high expectations of him: Is this the kind of God that you are prepared to follow? Is this the kind of reign that you are willing to subscribe to? Is this the Hurrah to which you will sing Hosanna? because if it is, it requires your all, as it took all of Christ. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.