The Pungent Scent of the Easter Lily Matthew 21:1-11 Palm Sunday First Presbyterian Church of Greenlawn The Rev. Frederick Woodward April 17, 2011 Matthew 21:1-11 (NIV) As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away." This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: "Say to the Daughter of Zion, 'See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'" The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Hosanna in the highest!" When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is this?" The crowds answered, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee." The Pungent Scent of the Easter Lily When we take our children or grandchildren to a Memorial Day parade, we don t tell them everything we know about war. We point to the shiny red fire trucks and we wave our flags. We pass over the slaughter of innocent life, and we don t share our secret prayer that it might never be our own daughters and sons, our own grandsons and granddaughters, who come home from war one day without legs or who never come home at all. As our children mature, we share the larger significance of such parades. We teach them to pledge their allegiance to the flag, and not just wave it around, and there is a great difference between the two. We help them to understand that we attend such parades not just for our own entertainment, but also for our national edification, and through them we try to teach our children age-appropriate lessons about the nature of sacrifice and what it means to be an American citizen. To a small child, Palm Sunday is just another parade, only we wave palms rather than flags. For our littlest children and grandchildren, that may be enough. After all, we want them to remember the church as a joyful and welcoming place. But as our children mature, and we with them, we seek more age-appropriate understandings of Palm Sunday. 1
For adults, Palm Sunday represents the beginning of Holy Week, a week that leads up to Easter, but only by way of Good Friday. For we know, even if our children do not, that when Jesus came to Jerusalem, he came to die, and that gives the story a wholly different cast. We know, as our children may not, that the crowd that shouted Hosanna would later shout Crucify Him. That gives Palm Sunday an indelible poignancy. Henri Nouwen has said somewhere that There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our life. Even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. Joy and sadness are born at the same time 1 Nouwen could have been speaking of Palm Sunday, but he was speaking of everyday life. And we know what he s talking about, don t we? When our daughters walk down the wedding aisle, as our Christina plans to do in October, our joy and sadness comingle because we may know a bit more about what lies ahead. We know a little more about love s illusions. We know how hard marriage can be today, how hard real relationship always is. As Christians, we ve been told our whole lives long that we are to love our enemies, and if we re honest, we ll readily admit that that is very difficult to do. But the harder truth is that it is hard for us to love anybody. It s easy to love people as we imagine them to be, but hard as heck to love people as they are really are. That gives even love a blue hue. When our daughters and sons land jobs after high school and college and begin to embark upon their careers, we join them in their celebration, but here too we may notice a little sadness bleeding through. For we know, as they may not, that no job or career can fulfill all the expectations we attach to them. Jobs may get us a roof over our heads and pay the mortgage, maybe even buy a new car. But unless we discover our calling- and that s something that comes from God as a gift, and not something that we work up on our own- even a professional career remains an insufficient source of our life s meaning. So whether we are talking about love or marriage, jobs or careers, it is probably true, as Nouwen suggests that even our happiest moments come with a blue tint. What Nouwen said of life in general is still more true of that holy moment when Jesus entered Jerusalem. For between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday lies Holy Saturday, a godforsaken day that is not simply tinged with sadness, but steeped in sorrow and seared with suffering. So what does an age-appropriate understanding of Palm Sunday look like for us and where among the palms and lilies do we find its good news? An age-appropriate understanding of Palm Sunday and of the event in Jesus life that it commemorates may require us to look at Scripture critically. Looking at scripture critically does not mean criticizing the Bible or expressing skepticism regarding it. It means asking questions of the biblical text, and permitting scripture to ask questions of us. It means looking closely at both what is and is not written, and situating what is written in its literary, social, and historical context. It means engaging our minds as well 1 This quote recently appeared in a Lenten devotion guide, Renewed for Life, which compiled various readings from among Henri Nouwen s many published works. 2
as our hearts. Reading the Gospels critically includes comparing them one to another to understand their distinctive emphases and commitments. There are important similarities in the way the Gospel writers speak of Jesus entry into Jerusalem. Matthew, Mark and Luke, for example, all mention Jesus approach by way of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Those well-versed in OT scripture will be reminded of the earthshaking day, foretold by the prophet Zechariah, when YHWH shall come, for on that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west (Zech. 4:4). Others will remember that it will be from the Mount of Olives that Jesus will ascend to heaven (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:11-12). But there are also differences between our Gospel accounts. In Matthew s version, for example, Jesus rides both a donkey and a colt, and not just a colt as in Mark, Luke and John. A lot of ink has been spilled over that subject, and in the end, you may conclude that it is a difference not worth troubling about. 2 But other differences are important. Only Matthew specifically speaks of Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem as a fulfillment of prophecy. Matthew joins quotes from Zechariah (9:9) and Isaiah (62:11) because the fulfillment of OT prophecy in Jesus Christ is crucially important for him. He has more than sixty explicit quotations from the OT, more than twice as many as Mark and Luke. Matthew wants his Greek speaking Jewish readers to understand that in Jesus all the kingdom expectations of the people of Israel have been fulfilled. 3 Another important difference is that in Matthew s Gospel, much more so than in the others, Jesus entry into Jerusalem becomes larger than life. Its drama is worthy of Charlton Heston. While Luke doesn t comment on the size of the crowd that spread their cloaks on the road, and Mark says simply that many people did (11:8), Matthew describes the crowd as huge (21:8 pleistos ochlos). Whereas none of the other Gospels mention children joining in the celebration, Matthew adds the wonderful detail that even children were crying out hosanna in the Temple (21:15). Finally, it is Matthew alone who suggests that effect of Jesus entry into Jerusalem was seismic or cataclysmic. 2 For a brief but able discussion of 21:4-5 and some of the interpretative challenges it has presented, see Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28, Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 33B (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), p. 593-595. 3 Matthew is unique in his frequent use of what scholars call fulfillment formulas. Matthew employs just such a formula in today s passage when he says that Jesus sent on the disciples in search of the colt and donkey to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet (21:4). Matthew draws upon Zechariah, who said, Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zech. 9:9; cf. John 12:15). Matthew also draws upon the language of Isaiah 62:11: Say to the Daughter of Zion, See your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. 3
Matthew actually uses the Greek verb from which we get our English word seismic 4, and since he is the only Gospel writer who ever uses that verb, that might get our attention. And what Matthew says about Jesus triumphal entry is that when he arrived, the whole city was shaken up, a point which is understated in the NIV translation which reports only that the whole city was stirred. But Matthew was saying a bit more than that. He was saying with Jesus arrival in Jerusalem, the whole city was in a state of upheaval. For Matthew, in fact, everything about Holy Week, from start to finish, is earthshaking. So my question this morning is whether Palm Sunday still has the power to shake us up, or whether it feels like just another parade? In our hosannas, do we hear only a hip, hip hooray, or do we also hear the urgent plea, save us please, and do it now? Is ours an adult kind of faith that permits itself, even in its hosannas, to be haunted by the later shouts of crucify him, and to hear both those cries as if they came from our very own mouths? When we wave our palms, can we frankly acknowledge that much of our own happiness is bleeding blue? In other words, is ours a mature faith that recognizes the centrality of Good Friday, or is ours only a happy face affair that is content to sweep all the bad news of the world under the church s rug? To put it another way, can we, as the people of God, endure the pungent scent of the Easter lily? A mature and age-appropriate Palm Sunday and Easter faith makes room for the death that is near the center of our faith, and honestly acknowledges the reality of death all around us and in us. And you know that I am not speaking here only of physical death, but also all of those other little deaths that never seem to us little at all: the death of broken family relationships between brother and brother, sister and sister, sons and daughters, children and parents; the death of divorce, the death of addiction, the death of hope, the death of joy, the death of purpose; the death of many of the false expectations we hold out for life, the death of our most cherished fairy tales with their happily ever after endings; the death of all the false expectations we place at the feet of our Savior, who did not come as a conqueror with fighter jets, but humbly, on a donkey and a colt; who did not come with armies, but with a ragamuffin band of disciples, all of whom came to desert and betray him; who came into the world not to wish away all our bad news, but to get it out in the open so that real healing might begin, and to help us learn what it is that makes our good news so very good; who came not to toss at us the confetti of optimism, but to entrust us with the gold of hope. 4 Matthew uses that verb two other times in his Gospel. One is after the Jesus crucifixion, when according to Matthew, there was an earthquake and the temple curtain was torn in two (27:51). The last time is after the resurrection when there yet another earthquake or aftershock. When an angel of the Lord rolled back the stone from the tomb and sat upon it, it was not only the earth that was shaking then, but even the guards. (28:4). 4
A few moments ago, I quoted from Henri Nouwen, and now I would like to complete his thought. Nouwen had said, There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our life. Even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness, Joy and sadness are born at the same time What Nouwen went on to say was that the truth that every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence by making us look forward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled with perfect joy, a joy that no one shall take away from us (4-2-11). That joy, of course, is Easter, but Easter is still a week away, and we can t get to Easter except by way of Good Friday. On Good Friday we will need to acknowledge again that we did not really want Jesus as he really was, but only as we imagined him to be. On that day we will acknowledge that we did not really want a savior at all, but only a good parade, for the savior who comes to us on Palm Sunday soon overstays his welcome. But today we remember Palm Sunday, a day of poignant celebration, like Memorial Day, a day of joy tinged with sadness. The good news of Palm Sunday is that even in the midst of sadness, a great joy awaits us. Even though a crucifixion follows Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem, that is not the end of the story, for beyond it is a whole new story, the story of the resurrection. If we can taste joy even when our happiness is fleeting it is because it is near the precincts of death that God has always chosen to set up camp. It is always in the midst of death, where sadness bleeds into our everyday lives, that God is at work transforming the world that God created in love. God invites us into that work this day. God invites us to embrace the world God created in love even though it is a world sometimes tinged with sadness. Palm Sunday delivers earthshaking news because it fulfills not only the ancient dreams of Israel but also our deepest yearning for resurrection joy. So, believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and let us continue our journey to Jerusalem. We go there together because that is where our Christ is to be found and we need to be with him. To God be the glory! 5