Palm Sunday A
March 16th, AD 2008
Meadowvale
Lutheran Church ,Mississauga Pastor Peter Lisinski
"GOD'S
PUBLIC DECLARATION"
(Gospel.
Matthew 21: 1-11)
More than a hundred years
ago Mark Twain wrote a short story called "The War Prayer", which
begins:
"It
was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms.
In every heart burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were
beating, the bands were playing, and in every hand a fluttering wilderness of
flags waved in the sun. On both sides along the wide avenue thunderous applause and
cheering voices, choked with happy emotion, stirred the deepest depths of human
pride. With visions of brave heroes
marching off to war, submerged in golden seas of glory, we invoked God's name
to support our nation's just and noble cause…”
(pp.
1-2, adapted for clarity)
Although written in a
different time, for a different purpose, Mark Twain captures the mood of the
crowd in Jerusalem as Jesus arrived on Palm Sunday.
After years of occupation by a foreign military power the oppressed
people of God hailed Jesus as a conquering hero:
"Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed
is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!"
But overlooked in the
patriotic frenzy of waving palm flags and enthusiastic singing of the national
anthem, was the fact that Jesus did not arrive armed to the teeth, mounted on a
mighty warhorse -- or come rolling down Main Street in a Sherman tank to the
acclaim of a ticker tape parade. Jesus
arrived unarmed, with not so much as even a slingshot, riding a simple,
agricultural beast of burden! "Look!"
says Matthew; "Pay close attention! Take note!
Observe! Your king is coming
to you humble, and mounted on a donkey!"
In a world that often
confuses the will of God with the pride of patriotism, Jesus carefully staged
his arrival in Jerusalem to demonstrate that God's will is better served by our
willingness to die for its fulfillment than by our willingness to kill for it!
Patriotism -- the proverbial love of king and country, and its dominant
mythology that God favours one nation over others --is idolatry!
It is the source of violence and war; it is not, and never has been, a
virtue of Christian faith!
Jesus went to Jerusalem
knowing he would be crucified precisely for being unpatriotic!
The Romans saw him as a political threat to their nation's imperial
power; and the people of Israel saw him as a political traitor to their national
dream of independence. And they
were both right! For Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God, had come into the world to establish the kingdom
of God -- a new community; a whole new world -- where national borders are
eliminated and "true patriot love" is overcome!
And those who follow Jesus recite the Apostles' Creed as their pledge of
allegiance -- not official oaths of citizenship; they find their personal
identity in the baptismal font, not in the birthplaces of "home and native
land"; and they stand in human solidarity under the cross of Jesus Christ,
not under any national flag!
Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week was God's public declaration of the end of the old world of sin, evil and death -- an end that came, finally and fully, in Jesus' crucifixion, death and burial at the end of Holy Week! And by raising Jesus on the first day of the new week God has made Easter Day the first day of his new creation! And the very first thing God created on that first day of his new creation was the Christian church! The Christian church is God's new people without borders -- people reborn in the holy water of baptism, and sustained by the holy food of our crucified and risen Lord's body and blood. We, the people of the Christian church in this congregation, are God's public declaration in this community that God's new world of love, peace and eternal life has begun!