Palm Sunday – March 24th, 2024
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: John 12:12–19
“Entering with Purpose”
Theme: Christ enters Jerusalem humbly with one purpose: to suffer and die and rise again.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
During the summer, parades are enjoyable to participate in and watch. I have some very fond memories growing up of scampering around to collect the candy that is thrown, or later to actually throw candy from my 4-H club’s float. It’s neat to see people from your hometown gathered there to watch organizations from the community represent themselves. It’s cool to see all the fire trucks and police cars, 4-H clubs, the veterans from our country’s wars, politicians, boys’ and girls’ scouts, and perhaps even a band.
But, all parades come to an end, then you pack up your folding chairs or tear down the float and do it all again next year. Now, to be sure, most of the parades that we participate in don’t have a specific goal besides showing off the community. By that I mean they don’t have somewhere special that they are going. In fact, they often end up in the same place they started.
You can probably think of some very solemn parades that are meant to go somewhere. Funerals for very important people often have parades, as the casket is brought from one place to a church, then to the cemetery. I know we have a cemetery right outside our church, so there is no funeral parade for anyone buried here, but there is a sort of funeral parade if someone is buried elsewhere. We don’t often think of the line of cars that go from the church to the cemetery as a parade, but it has some elements to it, as other cars are expected to stop while the motorcade passes by.
Another type of parade will happen next January when a president is sworn in. This parade has a lot of pomp and circumstance, as the president-elect makes his way to the United States Capitol to be sworn in, then to the White House to take up his office.
Parades usually signify movement. You’re celebrating someone going somewhere. In our text for today, Jesus is going somewhere. He’s going to Jerusalem.
Many people there in Jerusalem heard that Jesus was coming to town. They also heard what he had just done. You see, right before our Gospel text today, we hear that Jesus had raised Lazarus after four days in the tomb. Many people were amazed and began to follow Jesus. After all, no one had ever seen anything like this. Yes, Jesus had raised many other people during his ministry, but they had only been dead for a few hours or perhaps a day. This was different. A man whose body had begun to decay was raised to new life.
The hopes of many were on Jesus, but he also caused envy in many of the Jewish leaders. They hated him so much that they planned to put him to death. John also records that “the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him” (10–11).
And yet, Jesus was going there to Jerusalem. The world expected a glorious king, riding in on a white stallion, with military guards and the secret service. Even when Jesus came quite humbly, seated on the back of a young donkey, they nonetheless greeted him as a king. They took down palm branches and went to meet Jesus, crying out “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” (13).
Hosanna means “Save us!” The people were quoting Psalm 118:25–26, “Save us, we pray, O Lord! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” This psalm was sung as part of the Passover Feast, which is why all these Jews were in Jerusalem at this time. This psalm was sung as the Passover lambs were sacrificed, and the people were unknowingly singing it for the true Lamb of God on his way to be sacrificed.
But the people weren’t thinking of sacrifice. They received Jesus as heavenly royalty, as Israel’s earthly king.
Now, everyone loves a parade. But where did these people think it was going? They thought that Jesus was heading into battle, that he would gather the Jews around him and go to war against Rome to drive out the Romans. After all, imagine what sort of an army Jesus could raise if he could raise the dead.
They were wrong though. Jesus did not come to receive earthly glory. He did not come to be a bread-king or to heal the world of all its diseases or to raise people up who would just die again. No, Jesus marched into Jerusalem to conquer the real problems: sin, death, and the devil.
Just as Jesus arrived into this world in humility, being born of the Virgin Mary in a stable in the small town of Bethlehem, so too did Jesus exercise his ministry in humility, trying not to draw attention to himself. Even when he comes into Jerusalem, and everyone is expecting an earthly king, he comes in deepest humility.
He knows where his path leads. His path during Holy Week leads him to the temple, where he will overturn the moneychangers’ tables and clean out his Father’s temple. His path will lead him an upper room, where he will celebrate the last Passover with his disciples, and institute something new, a new covenant and a new testament that is centered on his body and blood given for the forgiveness of sins.
His path will lead into the Garden of Gethsemane and the hours of prayer there. His path will lead to his arrest and trial before the Sanhedrin. His path will lead him to the judgment hall of Pilate, and the scourging and scorn that happened there. His path will lead him through the winding streets of Jerusalem, with Joseph of Arimathea carrying the cross for him. His path will lead him to Golgotha, where he will be crucified with two thieves, one on his right and one on his left.
That is where Jesus’s parade is going. There is where he has set his eyes, and there is his focus. Even now as we celebrate his wonderful, triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we know something that the Jews of that day could never even guess: we know that our Lamb of God is going to be slain for our sins.
This is where we too are heading, as we now enter Holy Week. We cry out today “Ride On.” Ride on, Jesus, to save us. We call out “hosanna”—save us.
We need you, Jesus, to “hosanna”—save us from our sins.
We need you to “hosanna”—save us from our enemy death and give us life.
We need you to “hosanna”—save us from the devil who stole our righteousness away in the Garden. We need you to defeat Satan. So, ride on, Jesus.
We need you to “hosanna”—save us by means of the cross through your righteous sacrifice. So ride on, Jesus.
We need you to open heaven for us sinners. We have nothing.
We are all following Jesus now in Holy Week. We follow him as we hear what he has done and then understand why he has done it for us. We will listen on Thursday night as Christ gives his disciples a New Commandment, to love others as he has loved them. We will also hear the New Testament—where Christ gives you his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.
We will follow Christ to the cross on Good Friday, hearing about the suffering and death that he endured because of our sins. This week is called “Holy Week,” for it is the central focus of our faith. It’s all culminating in the Resurrection, as Jesus did something that no one expected by rising on the third day.
During this Holy Week, we listen how God has given us all things—forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. And yet, today, we remember the mindset of Jesus as he treads this path. He did not come to earn earthly glory or to gain honor from the world. Why? Because the world cannot give him anything. What Jesus wanted is your salvation. It is through his humble obedience to the Father that he has won salvation for each of us.
Where is our journey going? Our journey is going first backwards to the cross. The parade that Jesus is leading us leads us to his death, and then to his resurrection. The parade route goes through our Baptism, through the teaching of the faith, through our life of eating and drinking our Lord’s Body and Blood, and it finally leads to our sleep in Christ. Christ is leading us on a parade that leads us to eternal life with him.
This is why Paul says to the Philippians and to us, “Have this mind among yourselves” (5). God teaches each one of us that we do not need to search for honor or glory in this world. This world is a temporary tent that will come to an end. Rather, we have been baptized into Christ. We have an eternal kingdom waiting for us. All things are already yours, and that is what this whole week is about.
Just as Christ emptied himself, we learn to empty ourselves as well. We learn to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. God makes us love what he loves and hate what he hates, as he teaches us to repent of our sins and find our righteousness in Christ our Savior.
And yet, even though Jesus was humble and did not gain earthly honor, he gained the honor and respect of his own Father, and that is the honor that matters. So, as we hear in Philippians, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (9–11).
Christ has won the victory. He has won the victory over sin, death, and the devil, and that is what we are beginning to celebrate even today. For our parade has an end, and that end is what we are all looking forward to. We have been promised eternal life through Jesus, and nothing could be more blessed.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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