“If I Could Welcome Him Again…..” Palm/Passion Sunday April 1, 2007

Psalm 118, Luke 19: 28-40, (plus Luke 22:14-23:56, the Passion Narrative)

This sermon is a significant revision of a sermon originally given on Palm Sunday 2003

Would things be different if I could go back and do it all again? Would I be wiser, braver, and more responsible if I could go back and relive that week when Jesus came to Jerusalem? I would certainly hope so, for in the years since then I’ve become a believer. I never really knew Jesus, but I’ve met the Risen Lord and I believe in him, so I’d want to do things differently. Of course, we never get that chance – what’s done is done – but I think about it a lot. I’ll never forget those days.

It was the first day of the week, just before Passover, when he came into Jerusalem, so of course we were crowded with visitors. If the teacher had wanted to plan a perfect time to stage an entrance before a huge crowd of pilgrims, that was it. There was such excitement, such passion, as people lined the streets, shouting out a greeting for a king, for a messiah, and I’ll never forget it.

And then there was that Friday - the same teacher and another huge crowd, another procession of a sort as the teacher left Jerusalem but now on his way to execution. That’s another day I couldn’t possibly forget.

I’d heard of Jesus, but I’d never seen him since he was from Galilee and I’m from Jerusalem, but there were reports and rumors that made their way to the city. People said he was a mighty healer, and a teacher of deep wisdom, and that God’s Spirit was with him in powerful ways. Little by little we began to hear the word “Messiah,” and we began to hope. We’ve been waiting so long since the days of King David and Solomon – always under the thumb of some foreign empire, always dreaming of the day when God might set us free, and always wondering when God’s Anointed One would come to make things right.

So, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem there were many of us wanting to believe. As he rode into the city a group of his followers from Galilee began waving palm branches and throwing their cloaks on the road to make a royal carpet, and all around me people began were caught up in emotion. They shouted, “Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David,” as if welcoming a king, or our Messiah, and I joined right in. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and now I wish I’d understood what was really happening – but how was I to know? It seemed as if he was the One I’d been waiting for – or at least for the moment it did.

It took only a day or two for everyone to realize that Jesus was not the Messiah – at least not the Messiah we’d been waiting for. His teachings were so radical, so contrary to everything we’d been taught – honoring sinners, welcoming the outcasts, ignoring laws when it seems that love requires it, criticizing our leaders, and setting aside traditions that we have followed for centuries. There was nothing in his message about driving out the Romans, nothing about re-establishing King David’s glory, nothing about God’s vengeance on our enemies. What kind of Messiah was this? And when Jesus went into the temple and overturned the money changers’ tables and chased out the merchants – that was the last straw. Our leaders wanted to get rid of him, and when it comes to political intrigue and manipulation Jesus and his followers were utterly outmatched. Five days later, when Jesus was being tried on their trumped up charges, the Roman governor was looking for some way to set him free. But people in our Jerusalem crowd, which not so long before had been shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David” were now screaming “Crucify him!” and “We have no king but Caesar!”

It was terrible, all the scorn and hate that were heaped upon this Jesus, and I’m glad that I can honestly say I had no part in it. All I could think, as I watched him carry his cross, was “I feel sorry for that man. He’s no Messiah, but he doesn’t deserve this.” I wished I could have helped him, but of course there was nothing to be done. They took him to Calvary, they nailed him to a cross, and that, apparently, was the end of the one who so recently had been hailed with a king’s welcome.

And now, now that a few years have passed, what do I think about it all?

In the weeks that followed I began to feel a deep regret, wishing that things had been different. I’d shouted and waved a palm branch, thinking I was welcoming our Messiah, but I didn’t know what I was doing. It soon seemed so obvious to most of us in Jerusalem that Jesus was no Messiah – that all these Hosannas and hopes were misplaced - but now I see it differently. He was a Messiah, but very different from what we’d expected, a Messiah of the sort we just weren’t able to understand or accept. I wish I had taken time to really listen to him. I just didn’t understand who he was, or what he had come to do……

I began to have a change of perspective began in the months following his death when I met a few of his followers. It was amazing to talk with them. You would think that they’d be absolutely broken, having seen their leader tortured and killed, but that’s not the way it was. They were so vibrant and full of joy! They said that Jesus was alive. Some had actually seen and talked with him, touched him, shared a meal with him. Others who hadn’t seen him said they felt his presence – more powerfully than when he had been at their side.

I was skeptical but I wanted to know more, and I began to learn who this Jesus was. I heard about the way he lived - of his love, gentleness, wisdom, strength. I learned about his teachings – not only “Love God and love your neighbor,” but “Love your enemies” as well – and the ways in which his apparent rejection of our traditions were in fact a fulfillment of them. I grew to respect him, and to honor him, and though I’ve never seen him since they nailed him on the cross, the conviction came to me slowly and surely that Jesus is alive. Somehow I could tell that his essence was at work in the world, in these people and even in me.

I think about that last week in his life and now I have my regrets. As I began to realize who he was I used to say, “I wish I could welcome him again! I wish he were riding into town one more time, and this time things would be different. I’d try to set aside the old eyes with which I looked at him and try to really see him for what he is. I’d ask God to help me understand the ideas I’d automatically rejected. And if I did wave a palm or shout Hosanna, I hope it would be out of real respect for Jesus, not from empty or uninformed emotion…

And I also used to think “I wish I could be there on that Friday again. Maybe I couldn’t stop the hate, maybe I couldn’t have saved his life, but I could have tried. And even if I couldn’t have saved his life, maybe I could have helped him carry the cross, or given him a drink of water – anything to help him in his suffering…..”

Well, it’s all wishful thinking, I know. What’s past is past. He rode into Jerusalem once, he died on the cross once, and we can’t go back to re-do what’s been done. I missed my chance to properly welcome him into the city, but somehow I try to make amends anyway. I know some people would think this is foolish, but I try to welcome into my life every day. I open up a place in my mind and heart where he can come in. I live by the things he taught. And I ask him, as if he were my king, “What service would you have me do today?” I didn’t give him a proper welcome the first time, but now I try to do so every day.

And in the same way, though I missed my chance to help him on that Friday, I still think of myself as coming to his aid anyway. It’s too late to help Jesus, but I see lots of other people who suffer: hungry people, poor people, lonely ones, people in pain. I do what I can to help them, and as I do so I think of Jesus carrying the cross, and I say “Jesus, I wish I could have helped you, and I am doing this in your memory.” Do you think he knows?

Would it be different if I could welcome him again? I don’t know – we were all so ignorant and weak; I might make the same mistakes, or new ones, and it’s all hypothetical anyway. But when I try to welcome him now, or help him – I don’t know, but I think he does know. And whether he knows or not, this life that I’m trying to live now – this life is full of peace and hope and joy.

I can’t go back and welcome him again, but I’m grateful for the chance to try to do it today.