Sermon -- Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020

/ Lime Rock Baptist Church/
 

Palm Sunday 2020
Mark 11:1-10

By: Rev. Gene Dyszlewski

The actual historical Palm Sunday event was a chaotic one. It is an event that is captured in secular history, outside the biblical record. The Roman historian Josephus records the event as one that got the attention of the entire city of Jerusalem. Jesus, an itinerant preacher, was getting known in Judea as a religious leader by some people but was getting only name recognition by most people. Without television, newspapers and the internet, word of mouth was the medium of communication. Most people hadn't met him or heard him preach. What they knew was what others said about him. Herein lies the problem. When he got to Jerusalem, that Passover season, it was bustling with thousands of people who knew of him. Word began to spread that he was the Messiah. The problem was, no one asked him.

So on that first Palm Sunday, Jesus was a Rorschach card. People saw the Messiah in him that they needed. The small number of people who knew him, saw him as a religious leader. But even his disciples were probably confused and wondering, “What’s going on?”

What most people of Judea expected was a political leader who would relieve them from the oppression of Roman Imperial domination. In those days, self-proclaimed messiahs popped up regularly. Revolutionary uprisings occurred frequently from the time the Romans took over until the Romans just couldn’t stand it any more and, 40 years later, destroyed Jerusalem, removed the inhabitants and dispersed them to all points of the empire.

The kind of messiah many people were looking for was a deliverer from political oppression. Roman oppression was severe. Pain and distress gives rise to fear and anger. The more fear and anger there is behind a belief, the stronger I want to hold on to it. The more I want to hold on to something, the harder it is to question let alone change my mind about it. A major problem with the first Palm Sunday was that the need for deliverance was blinding.

One take away from the Palm Sunday event could be how much we have in common with 1st Century Judeans. We tend to not notice how powerful our expectations are. We don’t expect bad things to happen. As 21st Century Americans, we also have this expectation that everything is very quickly going to be alright. We tend to have a television sitcom perspective on the world. Whatever tension arises in the script is resolved before the program ends, often in a predictable way. In addition, everyone who leaves the room leaves on a laugh line. Sitcoms never end in tragedy. Real life has no such guarantee.

When bad things happen and tragedy strikes nearby, we have a tendency to think, “Oh, that couldn’t happen to me.” Shock and surprise is the normal first reaction we all have. However, it is said, “revealing your feeling is the beginning of healing,” so simply acknowledging or naming our fear is an important move. Expressing our concern to God is a next step. Hopefully this opens a path to a better understanding of the new reality.

However, I could double down and freeze. “How dare tragedy and suffering enter my life! It just doesn’t belong here.” There is an egotistical conceit behind my belief that I am entitled to a stress-free life. What if it’s not all about me?

We are currently facing a large scale crisis, a pandemic. It is threatening because it is dangerous…it causes hurt…it is unpredictable…and it is out of my control. If I can stop trying to make it go away…if I can get out of the middle, and see this is so much bigger than I am, then I might be able to accept it and do what I need to do …and what I need to do might be just staying home. We all have different roles. If I happen to be healthy and I am spared any personal heartache, I may be able to help someone else in some meaningful way.

And in fact, people are doing just that. There are thousands of retired medical personnel who are returning to duty to join the thousands of caregivers who are risking their lives in our hospitals. Police and firefighters continue to respond to calls. Closer to home, our food pantry is open and serving people in need.

When you think about it, we share our current circumstance with everyone on the globe. We are all vulnerable. Fear in the heart of a person in Wuhan China feels the same as the fear I feel in my own heart. Heartache over the loss of a loved-one is the same in India as it is in Italy, as it is in the United States. People are people. Whether we are separated by 2,00 years of 2,000 miles, we have the same needs, wants and yearnings.

This is a lesson in common humanity. It’s not all about me. I am not the center of he universe. No one is more important that anyone else. No one is unimportant. It is a blessing to help someone and it is equally a blessing to ask for and accept help.

2,000 years ago Jesus rode into Jerusalem and he shared the dissatisfaction with oppression that every Judean felt. However, he was the only fatality. He was the only one of the crowd that Sunday who Rome was going to execute before the week’s end. His choice was not to panic. He didn’t flee. He continued to live his life selflessly.

We refer to Jesus as the Christ, which is the Greek word for Messiah. We do this because he taught us the values of God’s kingdom. These are in stark contrast to the values of Rome.

These values are:

  • generosity instead of avarice;

  • humility instead of hubris;

  • honesty instead of deceit;

  • compassion instead of indifference.

And the key to unlocking the entire treasure of values is being selfless.

Let us selflessly care for one another. Let us selflessly receive care from one another. Let us put our hearts in God’s hands.