This Is Why I Have Come...

¹When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples ²and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. ³If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” ⁴They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, ⁵some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. ⁷Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. ⁹Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

⁶Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. ⁷Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. ⁸So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom. ⁹Then he answered them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?” ¹⁰For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. ¹¹But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. ¹²Pilate spoke to them again, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?” ¹³They shouted back, “Crucify him!” ¹⁴Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!” ¹⁵So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

A Triumphant entry into a capitol city by a liberator, a savior, and the unavoidable ironies that come with those events.

This is what Palm Sunday celebrations and commemorations and worship are all about.

The irony of Palm Sunday is that Jesus, who was heralded as a king, was in a matter of days, hung on a cross and executed, in a manner not fit for an ordinary criminal. The irony is that the jubilation, the joy and the hopefulness of his triumphant parade, turned into a sad and tragic experience of passion, pain and suffering.

A Triumphant entry into a capitol city by a liberator... Isn't that also what we witnessed on television and on the front pages of our newspapers this week? We too witnessed jubilation and joy. This time when American tanks rolled into the streets of Baghdad. Children kissing soldiers. American colonels, holding up the hands of young Iraqi men in the sign of victory before adoring crowds. If this isn't the 21^st century equivalent of laying clothing and palm fronds at the feet of an approaching King, I don't know what is.

The jubilation and cheering, the thank you's extended to the political leadership of this country and the wild, lawless, carnival atmosphere of frenzied looting destroying and all images of the dictator, perhaps even surpassed the jubilation Jerusalem experienced when Jesus rode in on the back of a borrowed donkey.

I could not help but marvel at this particular irony this week. That all this triumph and jubilation was occurring on virtually the eve of our celebration of Palm Sunday. To me the particular similarity between these two historic occasions were uncanny.

However, those similarities are clearly superficial. It must be pointed out that the Iraqi people are happy at the arrival of the American forces, only because it signals the defeat of their greatest enemy, Saddam Hussein. They were not loyal devotees of the United States of America.

Nor should we make any prolonged comparison between Jesus as conquering king and the violence of any military force, even if it does come in the name of liberation.

These native sons and daughters of Baghdad are most happy with the relief they feel after being released from under the boot of an evil dictator. Jesus accomplished any victory he achieved, not with military power but miraculously through the power of spiritual and moral power.

When I visited Armenia almost 13 years ago, it was only 18 months after the horrible earthquake. In the Summer of 1990, it was also only a few months after independence from the Soviet Union was declared in Armenia. One year later, the Soviet Union would collapse leaving Armenia to become a free republic for the first time since 1922.

When I was there during those tumultuous times, an elderly Armenian man, who had spent virtually his entire life under the power of the Soviets, invited my group to his home. Around a table, heavy with food, fresh fruit and Armenian vodka for which he had certainly spent more than he could afford, and whose sole purpose was to entertain us in our visit, he spoke of what freedom was like. "The freedom our people are experiencing today," he said, "is like the sudden freedom of a dog chained with a collar around his neck and a short leash, suddenly released after seventy years of being tied up."

A few days ago, I saw footage of one of the now notorious Qusay Hussein's specially trained attack dogs. It was eleased into a lush palace garden that most of the people of Baghdad had never seen. This dog was exuberant and free. It ran amok off and away and out of sight.

The exuberance of the Iraqi people, although linked to the coming of the American forces, is not anything more or less than the wild, uncontrolled ecstasy of freedom. What will happen when these same celebrants realize that freedom is a complicated, imperfect, uncontrollable and difficult thing. What will happen when these jubilant throngs realize that freedom has its price, that freedom has responsibilities itself and that freedom does not mean the unrestraint of anarchy? I suspect that any pure joy people experienced is already being revised and sobered up and tempered in the wake of the looting and lawlessness that has erupted since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

2000 years ago, in Jerusalem, they believed that Jesus too would lead them to victory over the evil Regime they regarded the Roman Empire to be. However, instead of bolstering and supporting and standing alongside those revolutionary activists and leaders of the Hebrews in Jerusalem as their champion. Jesus moved to criticize them and challenge them.

Into the temple he went to overturn the tables of the moneylenders who had turned the spiritual practice of the house of God into a corrupt and unjust place of trade. He later re-entered the temple and boldly challenged the authority and the integrity of the High Priests, the Scribes and the Elders of the people. He told them to pay homage to the Roman Empire and that there was not where their gravest fears should be directed, but they should be looking to their own souls and in their loyalty and duty to their God in fear and in wondering.

It was perhaps predictable that in the matter of a few days, Jesus had been arrested, tried and was presented for execution.

Passion is a funny word. Once already during this Lenten season we've spoken of it. It is a word that historically in Christianity has been used to describe the event of Christ being crucified.

It comes from an ancient Greek word which means "suffering." It has also often been confused with the ancient Hebrew word "Pashto" which refers to Passover. You may remember that Jesus' died during the time when the Passover festival was being celebrated in Jerusalem.

The word passion has also taken on many new meanings in modern times. One pastor describes the way we view passion today like this, "According to my thesaurus," she says, " the word passion means 'powerful, intense emotion.' It can be any emotion: hate, grief, love, fear, joy. We commonly talk about the passion of two lovers, or the way an athlete competes with passion, or a musician plays with passion. Life without passion would be pretty boring"[1]

When we say that as Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem, he went from parades to passion, we might say that in the modern sense of the word, the parade itself was an opportunity for people to display passion, to show powerful and intense emotion in rejoicing, in laying their clothes in his path, to honor him and privilege him as their king and lord. The crowds also showed passion when they cried out to Pilate, "Crucify Him!" The intense emotion of Peter at the moment he heard the cock crow, when he realized that he had betrayed Jesus and he began to cry bitterly, could also be characterized as passion. As could be the intense fear, alarm, terror and amazement of Mary Magdalene, Salome and others who faced the reality of an empty tomb.

Passion in the modern sense of intense emotion is found all throughout the experiences of Jesus and the Apostles up to and through Holy Week. They went from parades to modern passion, intense emotion and feeling to ancient passion - pure & terrible suffering.

It is this ancient passion we see when we witness Jesus die on the cross. His suffering is unparalleled. For immortal God to take on mortality and have life end in the way it does is unimaginable. But the suffering of the disciples, which began with Peter's sense of his own betrayal, on to the terror they experienced when they thought Jesus had died and then experienced again during the persecutions which came after Jesus commissioned them to become and grow the church, is also remarkable. For centuries to follow, Chrisians faced the suffering, the passion Jesus himself endured.

The Iraqi people welcome the presence of our troops in Baghdad because they think it means their freedom. Yet they do not know what that freedom will look like, nor do they know what kind of folks their liberators will turn out to be.

It is with my deepest and most profound prayers that I hope that the parades and passionate jubilation experienced this week do not turn into the further passion, the greater suffering and deeper pain of the ancient Greek version of term passion. The families and communities of hundreds of American and British service personnel and of many thousands of Iraqi victims are already well aware of the passion and suffering possible when things go badly.

I pray that such passion, will not grow in the days to come, but instead subside, giving in to the possibilities of passionate optimism, of radical reconstruction and hopeful change.

Yet anything will be possible and anything should be expected if the expectations of that jubilant, hopeful throng are not brought to fruition.

Our lives too are joyful this day. As we exchange palms, smiles and genuine regard for one another. As we share gladness and companionship in worship, through communion and across tables of fellowship, we're enjoying the Palm Sunday parade.

For us the challenge and danger isn't so much that we might go from parade to passionate, intense emotion and shift again into the profound and pure suffering passion of Christ on the cross and that ancient Greek word.

For us in North America, its hard enough to move away from the parade and to experience the passionate and intense emotion, be it greater joy, profound empathy or even sadness. For most North Americans who celebrate Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter, the highlights are the Easter baskets, the egg hunts and the pretty spring clothes. For so many, the war is a far away thing. Passion of all kinds: suffering or even deep and intense feeling, are things to avoid. They're often uncomfortable and untidy.

Where is our passion? Praise God that most of us will never experience the suffering of families who've lost young heroes on the battlefield, or homes to 1000 pound bombs or the hunger, thirst deprivation and chaos of Basra, Nasiriya and Baghdad in these days, much less the violence of Christ on the Cross.

But what about the intense emotion that goes beyond the Parade? What about the intense emotion and passion that motivates us to do something a little bit different than what we normally do?

How can that passion of Christ, overturning the tables of the money lenders, of the woman of the streets anointing Jesus' feet and of Peter understanding his own culpability in the violence of the death of someone he loves, touch us in such a way as to do something differently?

To do something differently, like perhaps to teach our children. Teach them that peace is the way of Christ, that violence is not what God desires for us, so that even if they do enter military service, they will be moral, caring, protecting and disdainful of destruction, rather than hateful, vengeful and eager to kill, maim and destroy.

To do something differently, like perhaps to act even now, to support all those who have suffered loss, be they soldiers, families of soldiers in our communities or villagers thousands of miles away.

How will the passion after the parade influence our lives? In a moment we will take communion. Jesus said "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."[2] Commit yourself and take bold steps to be passionate even into the passion of suffering for your faith and beliefs.

Jesus said, "“This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."[3] Sacrifice yourself with the same passion he did and for the same care, compassion and love.

I pray that in such days as these in which we are living, we have the courage to move beyond the parade and experience the passion, the intense emotion of life in this world and allow it to fuel us as it did Christ.

[1]Rev. Margot Trusty Pickett, Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Durham, NC for UCC.org http://ucc.org/worship/samuel/s041303.htm

[2] Mark 8:34

[3] Luke 22:19

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