Don’t Be Afraid? Easy for You to Say!: A Sermon for Resurrection Sunday

O God, may the finger of your Spirit stir through the clutter of my words to point to a new understanding. Amen.

 

In the morning after the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, went to the tomb. In other gospels, there is talk about the women bringing burial spices to prepare the body. But Matthew knows better. He knows that Jesus’ body had already been anointed, meaning he didn’t need further anointing for his burial. So, in Matthew’s gospel, it simply says that the women were going to see the tomb. To me, it’s like any other time someone would go visit the grave of someone they love who had died.

 

The women, the two Mary’s, went to see the tomb. When they got to the tomb there was a great earthquake, and an angel came and rolled back the stone that covered the entrance to the tomb. The guards were afraid, and it seems that the women were too because the first thing that the angel said was, “do not be afraid.” The angel then told them that Jesus was not there, but rather that he was alive. The women are told to go and tell all that they have learned. As they go on their way, they encountered Jesus and he also says to them, “do not be afraid.”

 

“Do not be afraid.” Easy for Jesus to say! Can you imagine what these women were going through?! They came to the tomb because they loved Jesus, and they came filled with grief and sadness, filled with a sense of loss both for their friend that was gone and also for all that he represented to them. Can you imagine the despair these women would have been feeling? If you have ever grieved the loss of someone you loved, then you know that grief, sadness, and despair would have been the least that these women were feeling.

 

And to discover that Jesus is not in the tomb?! So now on top of all that sadness, grief, and despair, they’re feeling fear, too! Fear for what has happened to his body. Fear of the strange being that is there in front of them. Fear to really believe, to let hope back into their hearts, that maybe Jesus really was alive.

 

So often, throughout the bible, we come across these words of assurance, “Do not be afraid.” Typically, these words are said by an angel, it’s kind of their calling card. It is how you know you are being visited by an angel. Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth and Matthew’s account of Jesus’ resurrection contain these words of reassurance which seem to wrap the entire gospel narrative in those words, “Do not be afraid.” These are among the first words uttered by Gabriel to Mary when he tells her she will bear a son named Jesus. Then, an angel uses these same words to reassure Mary Magdalene and the other Mary when they find the tomb of Jesus empty and the earth shaking.

 

Fear is a powerful emotion and can affect people in different ways. For some, fear is empowering because it gives the person the adrenaline they need to move forward, to try something new, to go on an adventure, etc. For others, fear can be paralyzing, debilitating, and can make you run away. I’m sure you’ve heard of fight, flight, or freeze. The fight response is your body's way of facing any perceived threat aggressively. Flight means your body urges you to run from danger. Freeze is your body's inability to move or act against a threat. A new one I learned is fawn, which is your body's stress response to try to please someone to avoid conflict. For me, fear plays terrible tricks on my mind. It locks me into place, makes me freeze up, and often takes away opportunities. If I am full of fear, I am more likely to run away than to go and tell.

 

As a child, when you are gripped with fear, there is often someone who can help – parent, grandparent, sibling – someone to say the words, “do not be afraid.” And as a child, it is easy to believe those words of reassurance, to take great comfort from them. Fear is bigger for adults, more complex, and those words of reassurance are harder to come by. As adults, we live with enormous responsibilities and complex realities. If we hear the words, “do not be afraid,” we are often suspicious of the sincerity behind those words. Think about a time someone told you, “Do not be afraid. There is nothing to worry about.” When someone says to us, “do not be afraid,” the words often feel like empty platitudes. Something like, “there, there.”

 

And yet, here are these angels, to Mary at the beginning of Jesus’ story and to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, coming to say just that – “do not be afraid.” These are not words of assurance that nothing will go wrong but, rather, assurance that whatever may happen to us, God has the power to strengthen us and uphold us; that no matter our fears, God will never leave us to face them alone; that nothing is stronger than God’s love and God will always get the last word.

 

The angel tells the people, “Do not be afraid.” This command concerning fear is on-going. We should never be afraid anymore! Jesus has won! Do not allow fear to keep you from sharing what you have seen here. Do not let fear keep you from hoping, and from what it means that the tomb is empty, and from what you know now to be true, even if you are having hard time understanding it.

 

The women are invited by the angel to come and see that Jesus is not here in the tomb, and then they are told go and tell. Because “come and see” must always be followed by “go and tell.” It's a part of the good news! We are to go and tell the ways that God has shocked us into bewilderment, caused us to hope in our hearts that there can be new life. We are called to tell where we see God's love and grace at play in our world and how God's peace has attended us in times of sadness and grief.

 

The Gospel that began with a man afraid to marry his disgraced betrothed and a fearful king who tries to kill potential rivals ends with overwhelming joy. Jesus’ command to the women becomes a command to all of us:

 

Stop being afraid!

God has defeated death.

Rejoice, and share the good news!

 

Amen.

A Lasting Presence: A Sermon for Maundy Thursday

O God, may the finger of your Spirit stir through the clutter of my words to point to a new understanding. Amen.

 

Holy Week is celebrated by both Jews and Christians alike - for similar reasons but with very different undertones. In tonight’s account in Exodus, God tells Moses and Aaron how to combat the 10th plague. Here’s a reminder of that plague, found in Exodus 11:

 

Moses said, “Thus says the LORD: About midnight I will go out through Egypt. Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female slave who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock. Then there will be a loud cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as has never been or will ever be again. But not a dog shall growl at any of the Israelites—not at people, not at animals—so that you may know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.”

 

In tonight’s reading from Exodus 12, God instructs Moses and Aaron to have each family slaughter a lamb and spread its blood on their doorways. By doing so, they would be telling God which houses belong to the Israelites, and thus, by default, which belong to the Egyptians. It says in line 13, “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”

 

For the Jewish community, this week is one of celebration that commemorates the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. The Hebrew word pesach (pay-sock) refers to the ancient Passover sacrifice, known as the Paschal Lamb; it is also said to refer to the idea that God “passed over” the houses of the Jews during the 10th plague on the Egyptians, the slaying of the first born. The holiday is ultimately a celebration of freedom, and the story of the exodus from Egypt is a powerful metaphor that is appreciated not only by Jews, but by people of other faiths as well.

 

Passover is one of the most well-known Jewish holidays, as much for its connection to Jewish redemption and the figure of Moses as for its ties with Christian history. The Last Supper has been described as a Passover seder, a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover.

 

According to the Synoptic Gospels, it is on Thursday evening that Jesus, in the upper room with his disciples, celebrates Passover and institutes the Lord's Supper. The Gospel of John, however, speaks of the Thursday supper as the day before Passover, linking Jesus' death on Friday with the Passover sacrifices. And so, while Jewish people are celebrating the joy of their freedom from slavery, this week, for Christians, is a week of sadness as we come closer to the end Jesus’ life. In the end, Christians will celebrate their freedom and forgiveness from sin, but the build-up to Easter Sunday is more sombre than joyful.

 

Tonight is an especially sombre night as Jesus lays the foundation of his departure even while his disciples are oblivious to the fact. There was no human reason why Jesus had to die. To the general public, he was more helpful than harmful. But to the Roman leadership, Jesus was a real pain.

 

Jesus was a small-town peasant in a Roman province far from the centers of political and religious power. People in such circumstances rarely threatened Rome in any serious way. A miracle-working Jewish prophet and teacher would not have posed much of a conventional threat to such power and brutality. For his own part, Jesus never took up arms, nor did he encourage his followers to do so.

But while Jesus did not exercise conventional kinds of political authority, his actions and his message included threats to the status quo. Chief among his threatening actions? Jesus could draw a crowd. The gospels report that great crowds followed him. When he entered Jerusalem during the last week of his life, he entered to local fanfare. The popularity of Jesus, combined with the gathering of perhaps hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in Jerusalem for Passover, would have made Roman authorities very nervous. It was this nervousness that flamed the desire to pull Jesus from hiding and set him on trial before Pilate.

 

Jesus knew this was all going to happen. He knew that his time on earth was coming to an end. He even knew who was going to hand him to Roman authorities. And he knew that the ending wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. So why didn’t he tell anyone? Why did he turn towards the end instead of running the other way? Cryptic as always, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, declares that one of them will betray him, and tells them that he will only be with them a short while longer. And as usual, the whole situation goes over the disciples’ heads.

 

If you knew you were going to die, wouldn’t you tell your best friends? Wouldn’t you want you their support? Or at least give them a chance to say goodbye? Jesus didn’t do any of that, but he did impart some pretty heavy last lessons to his disciples.

 

First, he delivers to them a new commandment – to love one another. The reading says, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” While the Romans thought Jesus was a rebel-rouser, he really was, in fact, a teacher in the art of love. In all of his miracles, parables, and lessons, the underlying fact is that all can be done and achieved through the love of one another and of the stranger.

 

Second, Jesus imparted a lesson of remembrance. Jesus may not have openly declared to his people what was about to happen, but he wanted his disciples to remember him and the lessons that he had been teaching.

And so, much in the Jewish tradition of seder, Jesus and his disciples had one final supper together.

 

The Last Supper is one of the foundational pieces of the Christian faith. To accept the Eucharist in remembrance and thanks to the life and death of Jesus is to openly declare yourself one of his disciples. It is what makes this night so special, despite its darkness. Similar to the Jewish celebration of freedom from Egyptian slavery, tonight we, as Christians, celebrate our freedom to declare our love and faith in Jesus and reveal our willingness to follow in his footsteps.

 

Feel the quiet power these words: Take this bread and eat it. It is my body. As you eat it, remember me. Take this wine and drink it. It is my blood. As you drink it, remember me.

 

Almost 20 years ago, I read out loud tonight’s Corinthians passage aloud for the first time, my lips sounding out the words of our Eucharistic prayers. I felt a presence in those words, a presence that I felt physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I heeded the words of the Messiah, and the presence I felt, and became his disciple. Those words changed my life.

 

Tonight is a powerful night. It was for the disciples 2000 years ago. It was for me all those years ago. It is for us tonight. As we witness the stripping of our worship space and go into the darkness, there remains a presence. One that will remain with us until Jesus comes to us once again.

 

Amen.

When is an Ending Not the End?: A Sermon for Resurrection Sunday

May only truth be spoken and truth heard. Amen.

According to Jewish law, the body of the deceased is to be washed thoroughly, wrapped in a simple white shroud, and buried. All this is to happen within 24 hours of death.

 

Also under Jewish law, no work can be done on the Sabbath.

 

So when Jesus died as the Sabbath began, the disciples weren’t allowed to tend to his body. Jesus was placed in his tomb but the ritual of cleansing the body did not happen.

 

At the beginning of chapter 16 of Mark, the women who were part of the Jesus’ entourage – Mary Magdalene, James’ mother Mary, and Mary’s half-sister Salome – headed to Jesus’ tomb to complete the Jewish burial ritual.

 

They go anticipating what will be, and what they will need to do. They talk about the plans they have for how things will unfold: Who will roll away the stone? And likely the other details too. Who will anoint Jesus’ body? Do we need someone to keep watch? (another part of the Jewish burial ritual)

 

We can imagine the conversation unfolding as they make their way to the tomb. Conversations many of us have had as we make our own preparations and funeral arrangements for a loved one. We know what it is to be overwhelmed by our grief and to be focused, almost singlehandedly on the tasks at hand.

 

When they got to the tomb, the stone was moved and there sat a young man dressed in a white robe.

 

This man told the women that Jesus wasn’t there, that he has been raised and isn’t there. He then told them to run and tell the disciples that Jesus will meet them all in Galilee, just as he promised.

 

Mark tells us that the women ran away and told no one about what they saw.

 

And then the Gospel just ends.

 

Mark’s version of the resurrection is anticlimactic to say the least. Like much of the rest of his gospel, it is brief and leaves us… wanting.

 

It is believed that monks, as they were transcribing this Gospel, didn’t like the sudden ending and wrote in the “shorter ending of Mark” and the “longer ending of Mark” that adds in details about Jesus’ appearance to the disciples post-resurrection.

 

Let’s imagine for a moment though that Mark knew exactly what he was doing. That he crafted an incomplete ending by design. That he left the story hanging on this moment of failure and disappointment for a reason.

 

Why would he do that?

 

Maybe because he knew that no story about death and resurrection could possibly have a neat and tidy ending.

 

Maybe because he believed that this story isn’t over yet, and he writes an open ending to his gospel in order to invite us to jump in and take up our part in continuing it.

 

Are you ready to take up where Jesus left off?

 

Will you run in fear or will you proclaim the good news in word and action?

 

Author Madeleine L'Engle wrote, “The disciples did not bother to try to understand the resurrection body. They doubted, and then they believed. They believed something so wonderful that it changed this broken, fragmented, beaten-down little group of men and women in a moment from depression to enthusiasm, from despair to new life, vibrant and unafraid."

 

But when you don’t get to hear the resurrection part of the story, as with how Mark ends his Gospel, we are left alarmed and afraid.

 

The women are alarmed, anxious, and afraid. Their friend, their teacher, the Son of God has been killed by the very empire he came to redeem, and now his body is not where they had laid it.

 

What do we do when God is not in the place we expect and have been told and taught to believe God will be?

 

What do we do when God isn’t there and we are unsure where God has gone… where God’s been taken to, how or when or if God will be returned to us?

 

How do you respond to an empty tomb?

 

It is human nature to want clean endings, to want closure. But it was no accident that Mark left his Gospel unfinished.

 

That’s because the story is just beginning.

 

It’s only the beginning; this story isn’t over.

 

It’s only the beginning, and we have a part to play.

 

If you wonder why there is still so much distress and pain in the world, it’s because God’s not done yet.

 

It’s only the beginning, and Mark is inviting us to get out of our seats and into the game, sharing the good news of Jesus’ complete identification with those who are suffering, and his triumph over injustice and death with everyone we meet.

 

If you do not like the end of Mark’s gospel, then write a better one…with your life!

 

You are the end of the Gospel!

 

You want to experience the resurrected Christ? Live as he lived, love as he loved, forgive as he forgave, and believe as he believed and you will experience Jesus.

 

Repent and believe. Turn from your ideas, your expectations, your ideas, wants, desires, and ways - die to your old self - and believe in this good news of new and abundant life.

 

Walking into the newness of resurrected life means and requires us to leave part of ourselves behind. Our old selves. Old ways. And sometimes this happens without our being ready or even wanting to.

 

Sometimes it means leaving things we are not ready to leave behind.

 

Today is not the end of the story. Today is the beginning. The beginning which is not yet known and still unwritten. We don’t know where God… where Jesus is leading us.

 

But we know, and God has promised to prepare a place for us and us for the place where we are going.

 

That is the good news on this Easter morning. Just as Jesus has told us before, Jesus tells us now.

 

Resurrection, new life, often doesn’t look the way we expect, anticipate, or plan. In fact, it very likely will alarm us.

 

Do not be afraid. Follow where Jesus is leading… where Jesus is going… where Jesus is waiting for us to see him and to continue living into the new life we have been given.

 

Mark wants us to know that Jesus’ death is only the beginning. The rest of the story is unfolding before our very eyes and through our lives.

 

We don’t get closure to this story, because it is still ongoing.

 

Mark’s Gospel is “The beginning of the good news” (1:1). Our story is its continuation.

 

Amen.

Resources:

pulpitfiction.com

Always Carry a Towel: A Sermon for Maundy Thursday

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord. Amen.

 

Today we enter the three sacred days. This is the ancient Triduum – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. After the emotional roller coaster of Lent, we take an extreme journey over three days that will undoubtably leave us broken.

 

Jesus knows that things have come to a head. He knows that his final hours are upon him. He knows that tonight he is having his final meal with his friends. And while they might not completely understand, the twelve around the table could feel the solemnity of these final, dark hours.

 

Jesus knew his time among humans was coming to an end and he wanted to leave his disciples with something special, something to show how much he loved them. This brings us back to the prophet Elijah who, as he was to depart the world in a final blaze of glory, offered Elisha “a double share of his spirit”. As the chariot of fire drives off, he leaves behind a mantle, the mantle he just used to part the waters of the Jordan.

 

Perhaps the people around the table on this night were hoping that Jesus would leave them something like that, a memento of sorts filled with Jesus’ power to heal and to perform miracles. Some token of greatness that they can take with them after Jesus leaves them (which of course they continue to deny will happen.)

 

And what does Jesus leave them? A mandate and a towel.

 

Maundy comes from the Latin mandatum, which means mandate. And the mandate that Jesus leaves his disciples with, and us with, is to love one another. Not just in simple (or grand) actions, but in authentic feeling, deep engagement, and generous action. Love is the litmus test of Christian witness. Our love for each other is how the world will know who we are and whose we are. Our love for each other is how the world will see, taste, touch, hear, and find Jesus. It’s through our love that we will embody Jesus, make Jesus relatable, possible, plausible, to a dying world.

 

Sounds hard, right? But here’s our saving grace: Jesus doesn’t leave us alone and bereft. He gives us a road map, in the second half of his commandment: “As I have loved you.” Follow my example, he says. Do what I do. Love as I love. Live as you have seen me live. Weep with those who weep. Laugh with those who laugh. Touch the untouchables. Feed the hungry. Welcome the child. Release the captive. Forgive the sinner. Confront the oppressor. Comfort the oppressed.

 

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” This is Jesus’ mandate. It sounds hard but don’t worry because Jesus is going to equip us with the only thing we will need – a towel.

 

A towel: something used to dry dishes, wipe tables, mop up sweat, and dry away tears. While the mantel of Elijah’s power parts water, Jesus’ mantel is a tool of mundane work, a tool of humility, hospitality, and hope.

 

In Jesus’ time, foot washing wasn’t an unusual activity. People walked around in sandals or barefoot and so their feet got dirty and dusty. When they would go into a home, whether theirs or as a guest somewhere, they would be given a bowl to wash their feet off so as not to drag all that dust everywhere through the house.

 

By proceeding on all fours around the table, washing his disciples’ dust-encrusted feet, Jesus is offering one of the oldest forms of hospitality. In this humbling act, Jesus is at the same time showing his love for his friends, showing his friends how to love others, and allowing his friends to experience what it is like to be served.

 

To be on the receiving end of service can make you feel quite vulnerable. It forces you to let go of control, to let someone else do something for you that you know you could easily do yourself. Or maybe if you can’t do it yourself, the vulnerability lies in admitting that fact and accepting help.

 

By experiencing this vulnerability, Jesus’ disciples will better understand how to care for others without coming across as condescending. By being on the receiving end of service, we learn how to take care of the small and mundane details instead of seeking out glory in a spectacular show of allowing ourselves to be cared for.

 

Which leads us into a lesson of humility. Many of us resist the vulnerability of being cared for, preferring to remain in control of everything that happens to us. We prefer to choose what gifts we accept rather than admitting our dependency.

 

How hard is it for us to receive a gift? It brings out a vulnerability in us that really we’d just rather avoid. We would prefer to be like Peter, saying that we would never ask a friend to do such a menial thing as wash our feet. But if we can’t even accept the small gift of clean feet, how on earth are we going to accept the greatest gift of all – the cleansing of sin through death on a cross?

 

In all of this talk about vulnerability in giving and receiving hospitality, there is hope and a lesson to be learned in reconciliation. Jesus doesn’t just wash the feet of his friends. He also washes the feet of his betrayer. Loving those with whom we agree is the easy part. Loving the rest of the folks we come in contact with is a much harder proposition.

 

Jesus could not be clearer: People will know we are disciples of Christ quite simply by our loving acts — acts of service and sacrifice, acts that point to the love of God for the world made known in Jesus Christ.

 

And it will all be done with a towel.

Amen.

Resources:

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David Bartlett & Barbara Brown Taylor

journeywithjesus.net

workingpreahcer.org

"A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams

Do Not Be Afraid: A Sermon for Resurrection Sunday

In the morning after the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (likely not Jesus’ mother), went to the tomb. In other gospels, there is talk about the women bringing burial spices to prepare the body. But I think Matthew knows better here. He knows that Jesus’ body had already been anointed, meaning he didn’t need further anointing for his burial. So in Matthew’s gospel, it simply says that the women were going to see the tomb. To me, it’s like any other time someone would go visit the grave of someone they love who had died.

 

But I digress. The women, the two Mary’s, went to see the tomb. When they got to the tomb there was a great earthquake, and an angel came and rolled back the stone that covered the entrance to the tomb.

 

The guards were afraid, and it seems that the women were too because the first thing that the angel said was, “do not be afraid.” The angel then told them that Jesus was not there, but rather that he was alive. The women are told to go and tell all that they have learned. As they go on their way, they encountered Jesus and he also says to them, “do not be afraid.”

 

“Do not be afraid.” Easy for Jesus to say! Can you imagine what these women were going through?! They came to the tomb because they loved Jesus, and they came filled with grief and sadness, filled with a sense of loss both for their friend that was gone and also for all that he represented to them. Despair would have been something else that they were feeling. If you have ever grieved the loss of someone you loved, then you know that grief, sadness, and despair would have been the least that these women were feeling.

 

And now to learn that Jesus is not in the tomb?! So now they feel fear! Fear for what has happened to his body. Fear of the strange being that is there in front of them. Fear to really believe, to let hope back into their hearts, that maybe Jesus really was alive.

 

So often, throughout the bible, we come across these words of assurance, “Do not be afraid.” Typically, these words are said by an angel, sort of like their calling card. It is how you know you are being visited by an angel.

 

Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth and Matthew’s account of Jesus’ resurrection contain these words of reassurance which seem to wrap the entire gospel narrative in those words, “Do not be afraid.” These are among the first words uttered by Gabriel to Mary when he tells her she will bear a son named Jesus. Then, an angel uses these same words to reassure Mary Magdalene and the other Mary when they find the tomb of Jesus empty and the earth shaking.

 

Fear is a powerful emotion and can affect people in different ways. For some, fear is empowering because it gives the person the adrenaline they need to move forward, to try something new, to go on an adventure, etc.

 

For others, fear can be paralyzing, debilitating, and can make you run away. Ever hear of fight, flight, or freeze? The fight response is your body's way of facing any perceived threat aggressively. Flight means your body urges you to run from danger. Freeze is your body's inability to move or act against a threat. A new one I learned is fawn, which is your body's stress response to try to please someone to avoid conflict.

 

For me, fear plays terrible tricks on my mind. It locks me into place, makes me freeze up, and often takes away opportunities. If I am full of fear, I am more likely to run away than to go and tell.

 

As a child, when you are gripped with fear, there is often someone who can help – parent, grandparent, sibling – someone to say the words, “do not be afraid.” And as a child, it is easy to believe those words of reassurance, to take great comfort from them.

 

Fear is bigger for adults, more complex, and those words of reassurance are harder to come by. As adults, we live with enormous responsibilities and complex realities. If we hear the words, “do not be afraid,” we are often suspicious of the sincerity behind those words. Think about a time someone told you, “Do not be afraid. There is nothing to worry about.” When someone says to us, “do not be afraid,” the words often feel like empty platitudes. Something like, “there, there.”

 

And yet, here are these angels, to Mary at the beginning of Jesus’ story and to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, coming to say just that – “do not be afraid.” These are not words of assurance that nothing will go wrong but, rather, assurance that whatever may happen to us, God has the power to strengthen us and uphold us; that no matter our fears, God will never leave us to face them alone; that nothing is stronger than God’s love and God will always get the last word.

 

The angel tells the people, “Do not be afraid.” This command concerning fear is on-going. We should never be afraid anymore! Jesus has won! Do not allow fear to keep you from sharing what you have seen here. Do not let fear keep you from hoping, and what it means that the tomb is empty, and what you know now to be true, even if you are having hard time understanding it.

 

The women are invited by the angel to come and see that Jesus is not here in the tomb, and then they are told go and tell. Because “come and see” must always be followed by “go and tell.” It's a part of the good news! We are to go and tell the ways that God has shocked us into bewilderment, caused us to hope in our hearts that there can be new life. We are called to tell where we see God's love and grace at play in our world and how God's peace has attended us in times of sadness and grief.

 

The Gospel that began with a man afraid to marry his disgraced betrothed and a fearful king who tries to kill potential rivals ends with overwhelming joy. Jesus’ command to the women becomes a command to all of us: Stop being afraid! God has defeated death. Rejoice, and share the good news!

Resources:

"The Women's Bible Commentary" edited by Carol Newsom and Sharon Ringe

"Feasting on the Word" edited by David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor

Pulpit Fiction

Ministry Matters

God Save Us!: A Sermon for Palm Sunday

Photo by Pastor Nate Elarton on subsplash.com

Typically on Palm Sunday, I have preached on the absurdity of the people waving their palms and cheering as Jesus entered into Jerusalem and then, a mere five days later, calling for his crucifixion and death. It is easy to get excited and angry about how people flowed quickly from praising their Messiah to demanding Pontius Pilot hang him up next to the other criminals.

The actions of the crowd still irk me, but today I thought I would reflect on something else – the word “Hosanna”. I want to talk about this word today because during my research, I came across a common thread regarding the word “Hosanna” that I had never thought about before.

 

When you hear the word “hosanna”, where does your mind go? How does it make you feel?

 

I always heard “hosanna” as a cry of celebration. As in, “Hurray! Jesus is here!” The crowd is celebrating the arrival of a celebrity.

 

But, it seems, that might not be the case.

 

Scholars' best guess is that "Hosanna" is a contraction of two Hebrew terms: yaw-shah, meaning “to save” or “deliver”, and naw, meaning “to beseech” or “pray”. In Greek, it translates to soson dei, meaning “save us”. In casual conversation, you could think of it like “God help us”.

 

Now go back and picture Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. At face value it would seem that the Jerusalem fan parade is glorifying God’s name, but they are not really. They are crying out for help, to be saved.

 

The people cheered. They tossed branches from the nearby trees to the ground, and they called out, "Hosanna."  They looked upon this prophet - rumored to be the Messiah - and they cried out to him, "Save us."

 

“God, help us!”

 

These are the cries the crowd makes as Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem.

 

Isn’t that the most basic of all our prayers? “God, help us! God, save us!”

 

Over the last decade or two, Palm Sunday worship seems to be pushed aside. Not that we don’t bring palms to church each year, wave them during the procession, and have them blessed so that they can be made into crosses, and subsequently into ashes the following year, but often today’s scripture lessons would lean more towards the Passion than the palms.

 

It is thought that as fewer people attended daily Holy Week services, especially Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, it became important to ensure that congregations, at the very least, heard the story of Jesus’ journey to his death on the cross before hearing of his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

 

Therefore, Palm and Passion stories got merged into a single liturgical Sunday.

 

I understand that reasoning completely. If we move directly from a Palm Sunday procession to an Easter parade, we will have missed the story and experience of the passion.

 

As insufferable and horrific that the events at the end of Holy Week are, we need to slow ourselves down and let the story play out throughout the week. We shouldn’t rush through the Passion just to get to the celebration.

 

We need to experience each as it happened, not try to squish it all into a single Sunday morning.

 

And so our journey starts today with that primal prayer – God save us.

 

The crowd was asking to be saved from the Romans. They wanted deliverance from an occupying army. They wanted to be saved by the Messiah that they had been promised.

 

Now, we’re not under the thumb of a Roman army, but I’m sure I can’t be the only one whose prayer includes some form of “God save us, God save me?”

 

It is a complicated thing to ask, "What does God save us from?"

 

When we wave our palms and boldly cry out, "Hosanna," do we dare imagine what we really want God to save us from?

 

Anger, depression, death?

 

The endless stream of violence?

 

Loneliness?

 

Fear?

 

When we cry out “Hosanna”, we are appealing to God from the most vulnerable places inside of us. We are asking God to make us whole again.

 

Ah! And now we come back to the crowd who changed their mind by the end of the week.

 

The people wanted salvation, which they defined as "freedom from the Romans."

 

"Save us," they cried, but then Jesus did not set about saving them in a manner that they could recognize.  He did not take up a sword and send the Romans fleeing.

 

Instead, he went and had supper with his friends; he went and prayed in a garden.

 

It only took a few days for the crowds to switch from crying "Hosanna" to the shouts of "Crucify him" as they lost their patience waiting for what they expected to happen upon the arrival of the Messiah.

 

We, the reader, are dismayed at this, but would we have acted any differently? If the change we so desperately desired was not happening in the way we expected, would we not get angry?

 

God answers our cries of "Hosanna" in ways so utterly unexpected.

 

God comes. God incarnates. God marches on to death in order to bring us salvation.

 

Is there any better way to commence Holy Week than with "Hosannas" on our lips?

 

Is there any more faithful way to embark on this sacred journey than to ask God, out of the deep, honest places inside of us, to "Save us... please, save us"?

 

As we head into the dark days of Holy Week, anticipating the gruesome events of Good Friday, let us not hide from those horrific events.

 

Cry out “Hosanna” today and then experience deeply God saving us through Jesus through each day and each event of this journey.

 

Hosanna. Soson dei. God help us.