Online Worship Service April 5, 2020 (Palm Sunday)
It’s a bit of a weird time to be talking about a parade. To be waving palms marking Palm Sunday—the day of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. After all, in our wider world there seems to be little worth celebrating. No doubt many of our hearts feel heavy under the weight of estimates that this crisis will likely last longer than any of us expected. It’s not exactly the time for parades. Or celebrations of any kind.
Times like these are trying for everyone. And people of faith are no exception. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine shared on Facebook a challenge to God. That if there was a God, then that God should prove he exists by eradicating the coronavirus immediately. And so seeing as how coronavirus continues to take lives and keep us holed up in our houses, my friend’s point was that there is clearly no god. Because if there is a God who is both all-powerful and infinitely loving, this God wouldn’t allow such terrible and tragic things to happen to so many innocent people.
These questions come up less when times are good. But throw in a worldwide pandemic and doubt begins bubble to the surface. You don’t have to be an atheist to wonder where God is in all of this. If God’s in it at all.
Believe it or not, though, we’re not the first people to face questions like this. In fact, our scripture reading for today leads us right into the heart of the matter. Because while Palm Sunday was this occasion for great celebration, it was also the gateway to doubt for the first followers of Jesus.
You see, people of Jesus’ time lived in their own dire circumstances. By Jesus’ time, the world’s greatest superpower to date, the Roman empire, had invaded and occupied Palestine, and ruthlessly exploited its people. The word “poverty” doesn’t really do justice to the situation that Jesus’ people lived under. Nor does the word “oppression” do justice to the brutality by which the Romans operated. Understandably, like us, they wondered where God was. And how a good God of justice and mercy could allow such things to happen.
The Palm Sunday parade, though, gave Jesus’ people hope that God was finally intervening in history. Because according to the Old Testament, a Messiah, an agent of God would be sent to set things right. Not only to put an end to Roman rule and punish God’s enemies, but to usher in an everlasting age of peace. Here in our scripture passage, Jesus is coming into town riding on a donkey, the crowds are shouting “hosanna to the Son of David” and waving Palm branches because they think this is that moment. This is the guy. God’s gonna clean up this mess once and for all.
Of course, none of that ended up happening. If you read ahead in the story you’ll know that, in fact, Jesus, the one who was hailed as the Messiah, the Son of God on Palm Sunday, ended up arrested. Betrayed by one of his closest friends, and abandoned by the others. Tortured, humiliated, and nailed to a cross on Good Friday.
For both Jesus’ followers and his enemies, this was the ultimate evidence against him. His followers doubted him and scattered. And while Jesus hung dying, others mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.” Sounds like my friend’s internet post. Because it’s saying that if God is real and God is good, then God could only prove herself by setting the world right, right now. So much for the parade.
For most of us, Jesus’ failure, God’s failure to make everything right on a dime is the ultimate evidence against him. In the long history of the church, though, it’s precisely Jesus’ failure, his crucifixion, that shows us what true change is actually like. Because Jesus shows us who God is. How God works. He is the “word made flesh,” in the words of the gospel of John. He is the “image of the invisible God,” says the letter to the Colossians. Jesus shows us a whole different definition of God and God’s power. The fact that Jesus doesn’t repair the world with the flick of a switch. That he doesn’t smite his enemies, but forgives them. That he offers himself up in sacrifice for the sake of even those who kill him is evidence of a different kind of God altogether. One who is at work in a totally different way than we would ever expect.
And if this all sounds too abstract to you, consider a recent news story. A story about Don Giuseppe Berardelli, a 72 year Catholic old priest in Casnigo, a town in northern Italy about 50 miles northeast of Milan, the heart of that country’s coronavirus outbreak.[i] Berardelli was one of the many who died, succumbing to the virus thanks to his age and pre-existing health problems.
While his situation wasn’t particularly noteworthy, one small act has brought him world-wide notoriety. Before he died, Gerardelli gave up his ventilator so someone else could use it and live. What’s even more astounding, though, is that the ventilator he gave up was his own. It was bought for him by his parish as an act of love and appreciation for a beloved friends and community leader. Rather than saving himself, he gave up his own life to save another person.
Now, where others might look at this virus, may look at most of human history—in fact—and see it as overwhelming evidence for the absence of the divine, it’s not so for us. For we who have been given the eyes of faith. For us, we see an instance like this, how ever small, however insignificant-seeming, as evidence of God at work.
Not a god who acts through the snapping of divine fingers in a single moment of strength. Not a god who sets things right in overwhelming power, nor in dazzling displays of control. But one who comes to us under the radar, in what the world considers to be weakness. Redeeming the world through the power self-giving, self-emptying sacrificial love. Where others see absence, here we see evidence of the God we meet in Jesus Christ. The God who comes to us, side saddle on a donkey. Who comes to in the shape of a cross, laying down his own life to bring life to a broken, battered world.
So friends, while today may not be a parade-kinda day, we need a Palm Sunday parade now more than ever. The parade leads us through the cross, yes, through a world of suffering pain. But thanks to the God we’ve got, we know that Easter is always on the other side, resurrection always lies on the horizon. May we, may you join the parade with Jesus at the head, and folks like Don Giuseppe Berardelli waving palms, showing us the way of salvation and eternal life.
Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name if the Lord. Even here. Even now. Today’s the day for this kind of parade.
Amen.
[i] https://globalnews.ca/news/6723885/italian-priest-gives-up-ventilator/