© 2024, Dr. Tamilio

So here is the Palm Sunday sermon.  The one I have given many times over the past twenty-five years, the same one many a preacher will deliver today.  Jesus enters Jerusalem triumphantly as the King of kings and Lord of lords.  The atmosphere is festive.  It is a parade.  People yell and shout as they welcome Jesus (the Messiah everyone has been talking about) into town.  The irony is that many of these people who are waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna” will be waving their fists and shouting “Crucify” in less than a week.

You’ve heard that message before, right?  Well, if you haven’t, you just did!

That’s not the message today.  Today, we are going to just stick with the festive atmosphere and discuss, among other things, what this means.

If this story was told as a Western, it would look something like this: Jesus and the disciples would be wearing white hats as they ride into town on their horses — I mean donkeys.  The religious leaders would be wearing black hats.  The money changers in the temple would be the ruffians who came to town to cause trouble among the common people.  These are the people who are drinking, chewing tabakee, and hootin’ and hollerin’.  Sheriff Jesus comes to town to clean things up.  Fits pretty well, doesn’t it!

This isn’t a Western, of course, but there is a message here that relates to the tropes we often find in those classic John Wayne movies, one that fits the citizens of the town who long for justice to roll in, and one that captures what we see along the parade route — namely, those who are celebrating Jesus’ arrival.  Why are they so excited?  Is it because they have heard the stories about Jesus?  I’m sure.  Is it because they may know someone whom Jesus healed?  I am sure that is the case with at least a few of them.  Were any of them part of the multitude who were fed with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish?  Considering that thousands were part of those miracles, this is a good guess.

If nothing else, Jesus coming to town gave them hope.

Try to imagine the context.  The Jews were under Roman occupation.  They are about to celebrate the Passover: the meal (as outlined in the Book of Exodus) that remembers and re-celebrates the Hebrews being liberated from slavery in Egypt.  Do you see the parallels?  Oppression of a people (the same people), a meal that commemorates freedom, and the belief that the person riding into town just may be the promised Messiah that the people have been expecting.

Hope.  It has a feeling all its own.  Emily Dickinson may have described it best when she wrote,

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.”

Hope gives us the will to live, the will to forge forward.  Sometimes when people are in a dire situation, they lose hope, but sometimes, in those moments, hope grows even stronger because that is all they have.  For people of faith, that hope is often (and dare I say “should be”) even stronger, because we have a history to back up our anticipation.

Five days after Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the disciples felt as if their hope was stolen when they saw it nailed to a cross.  Yes, Jesus promised then that he would rise from the dead, but it is hard to hold on to that belief after he was arrested, flogged, and publicly executed.

There are many things we see happening every day that may cause us to lose hope, too.   In an article published by Harvard Medical School, Dr. Adam P. Stern reflects on how we get older, we tend to become less hopeful.  There are several reasons for that.  Dr. Stern writes, “Our bodies fail us.  We may experience life’s setbacks like losing jobs, relationships, or family members.  If our early challenges are so often related to growing and developing into healthy adults, later life can be thought of as a period of consolidation and acceptance of one’s self, even as the physical body declines and circumstances shift for the worse.”[1]

I would say that there are things we experience at every age that challenge our sense of hope.  Children also face challenges that can cause them to despair.  Bullying has long been a problem, but now it has morphed into cyberbullying.  Many of our schools are becoming zoos.  (Hello, Brockton High School!)  Young parents struggle with maintaining hope as well.  They are trying to raise a family, which requires at least two full-time salaries.  The rising price of everything from groceries for the table to gas for the car (forget about looking ahead to ensure that there is enough money for retirement), it is enough to make anyone throw up their hands.  It is enough for anyone to say, “Enough!”

But there is hope.  There is hope where dead dreams were once buried.  There is hope that is part of the caravan — the one that rode into Jerusalem this day with his entourage.  There is hope in the one who basically said, let me show you a way that is different from the ways of this world.  There is hope in the one who comes to you and proclaims, do not let the world define you; I will define you.  You have worth because of my love, not the values that have been thrust upon you.  There is hope that comes from the God who declares that the grave does not have the final say, because, in one week, you will find it empty.

Death is not the final word, of course.  A lot awaits Jesus, and us, this week.  There will be the cleansing of the Temple.  There will be a plot to destroy him.  There will be the meal in the Upper Room with the Disciples — Jesus’ Last Supper.  There will be the vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus’ arrest.  There will be a mock trial, the scourging, the mockery, the crown of thorns, the humiliation.  There will be the crucifixion.  There will be death.

Yes, Easter follows, but let’s not be too quick to rush to the empty tomb.  There’s a whole week of spiritual twists and turns ahead of us.  Not trying to control or change or lessen what happens, but believing in the best — believing that God’s desires will prevail, and that change for the better will come — that is the celebration that is Palm Sunday.

This is a day of hope, where we too wave palm branches in the air to announce the arrival of our Savior, who enters our lives bringing light and love and life.  Even the cross that awaits does not have the final say.

As Anita Agers-Brooks writes, “Palm Sunday carries Christ toward the ultimate sacrifice of his life on the cross, whereby his sacrifice we are healed!  Its central message is that God sees us and loves what he sees.  The only requirement from us is that we welcome him and his peace, and exercise faith in his ultimate healing — on earth or in heaven.”[2]  That’s it: this day is a celebration of the hope that is ours.  It rode into town this day — and it changed everything.  Amen.

[1] Adam P. Stern, MD, “Hope: Why It Matters,” from Harvard Health Publishing, July 16, 2021.  Taken online.

[2] Anita Agers-Brooks, “What Is the Message of Palm Sunday?” from Inspiration Ministries, 2004.  Taken online.