The Swiss Alps are a place of incomparable beauty. This past week, they have also become a
symbol of human tragedy and incomparable loss.
The contrast is stark and inescapable. Those astonishing
peaks, covered with snow and rising to tremendous heights against the sky,
challenging hikers and skiers and enthralling all of us with their
magnificence. And now – the backdrop to
a most horrible event, an act in which 150 people were crashed into a
mountainside and killed, and perhaps also a consequence of terrible,
incomprehensible, illness. The contrast
between beauty and horror stuns us all.
So it is with Palm
Sunday.
Today: people
filled with excitement, branches waving - a parade
By Friday: the crowds
turned, the shouts turned to jeers - a crucifixion.
Our lives, our world,
are filled with such juxtapositions. Beauty
and horror, goodness and brokenness, the surging of hopes and the destruction of death,
pressed against one another, operating in the same theatre of life.But always, always undergirded by the steadfast love of God. The chesed of God. The unwavering mercy of god.
Our Psalm today, Psalm 118, refers to the chesed of God, in our translation the
steadfast love of God. God’s steadfast
love endures forever. Chesed is sometimes translated as the
loving-kindness of God or, as I have done in our sermon title, the unwavering
mercy of God. What does that mean? A love that persists, a love that is
unfailingly generous, a love that invokes mercy – forgiveness in the face of
all transgressions. A love that
prevails, no matter what.
Today's psalm, with chesed as its center, is a favorite, is
a well-known and beloved song of the Hebrew people. It is possibly the most quoted of the Psalms.
It was Martin Luther’s favorite psalm, which makes sense, given that early
German reformer’s immersion in a profound sense of the love of God.
·
The psalm reminds us of
·
God’s abundant love – The abundant love of the
God who saved the people of Israel.
·
Impervious love – The love of a God whose
goodness never ceases.
·
Extravagant love – The love of a God who fills
the universe with light.
·
Reversing love – The love of a God who holds up
what we reject, who transforms the discarded cornerstone
into the chief cornerstone.
·
Unwavering love – The love of a God who is
steadfast in the face of all trials.
Psalm 118 is an articulation, an expression in word and
song, of this extravagant love of God.
And our gospel story, the story of what we call Palm Sunday,
is the enactment of that love --
A love
reflected by Jesus
·
Deliberate love – Look at all the planning that goes into this Palm Sunday event. Commentators tell
us that over half of the story is devoted to the procurement of the donkey.[1] This donkey acquisition
is not haphazard event; Jesus knows exactly what he wants and proceeds
carefully – all of his actions
are signs of a deliberate love.
·
And a humble love – it is, after all, a donkey
that Jesus chooses. There’s nothing
wrong with a donkey – people often rode donkeys – but a donkey doesn’t present
the same image that a prancing white stallion does. Surely a king – a secular king, at least, a
Roman king, a warrior king – would produce a horse to match his status. Only a humble love would deem a donkey an
appropriate mode of transportation.
·
And Jesus’ love is a courageous love. By this point in his journey, he knows that a
violent death awaits him. And yet he
straddles that donkey and rides into the city in which trial and crucifixion loom head. A courageous, steadfast love indeed.
·
And an all-encompassing love. Jesus knows by now to expect betrayal; he
knows that he is going to serve a meal in which he will give of himself to one
who will betray him, and give of his life of behalf of others who will do the
same. But his love is so broad, his
mercy so unwavering, that he looks
beyond those realities to the greater one, the one in which death will be no
more.
This week is a reminder that we, made in the image of God,
do not always mirror that sort of love
Like the crowds, our waving of palm branches does not
signify an unwavering love.
·
When love is inconvenient or difficult for us,
we back off. I think of the day when it
was so very cold and we cancelled our community meal – not my finest moment in
ministry – although salvaged by the leadership of Doris and Sandy and all the
rest of you who showed up anyway to prepare bags of food, it was still a day on
which I was reminded that, in my case, at least, love is not always steadfast.
·
When our standards are challenged – I heard a radio
show this past week in which the guests talked about the deserving and
undeserving poor – and that’s a distinction we sometimes make, isn’t it? We know that we are called to serve the poor
– but if they don’t “measure up,” we may find that our love is a bit on the
shaky side.
·
When subversive action is required - we shy away. When we are asked to go public with our faith
convictions, we often stop cold. Maybe our
love is not as strong as we had thought.
·
And when the lure of the many push us this away
and pull us that, we succumb, don’t we?
That inner teen-aged voice which cries out, “But everyone else is doing
it . . .” or “But no one else has to do this!” – that one stays with is,
doesn’t it?
Like the crowds, we put down our branches and we turn away.
·
But Jesus rides on - the rejected cornerstone.
·
Jesus rides on - the embodiment of complete,
self-sacrificing, self-realized, enduring love.
·
The starkness of his courageous self-giving
against the backdrop of greed, corruption, and resistance that will kill him is
not yet apparent.
·
The boundlessness of his love is not yet clear.
·
The power of his very being -- to destroy and to
conquer death itself -- awaits another Sunday.
We embark upon this week with a parade. A festival week in
Jerusalem - a celebration of Passover, of liberation, of freedom.
But we know from our
vantage point that it is to be a week of contrasts
A week not unlike
this last one, in which a plane filled with jubilant travelers was crashed into
the mountains.
By the end of this
Palm Sunday week in Jerusalem, the laughter will have turned to taunts, the
celebration to accusations, and the donkey will have given way to a cross.
Today, we celebrate -- we wave palms -which we will then put
down -- in honor of the one upon whose steadfast love we depend.
Today we celebrate -
and then we pause.
Our text gives us space to pause. Have
you ever paid attention to the final scene in temple. The parade is over, the
crowds have gone home and, the Bible tells us:
“Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. After he
looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he
returned to Bethany with the Twelve.”
He is alone, a
solitary figure whom the crowds have deserted.Evening has fallen - the light of day has been quenched.
This is no ordinary
ruler taking command of the city.
This is the figure of steadfast love, of unwavering mercy,
of undeterred self-donation --- the ultimate sign of grace and courage in a
world sorely in need of both.
When you put your palm down today, do so gently. When you put your palm down, remember that it
is a symbol - not merely an object to be waved and discarded -- but a symbol of
that which is unwavering: the love of God and the gift of Jesus, the one born
not to conquer a city, but to claim victory for life over death. Amen.
[1] Thomas
G. Long, “Donkey Fetchers.” Christian Century ( April 4,2006).
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3389
