Palm Sunday
April 13, 2014- Pastor Adam Moline
Isaiah
50:4-9a, Philippians 2:5-11, John 12:12-19 (Processional); Matthew 27:11-66
LSB 442,
438, 441 Communion – LSB 443, 440, 634,
543
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today is the Gospel processional lesson read earlier, along
with the Old Testament Lesson, especially these words, “Hosanna! Blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”. Thus far our text.
Hosanna, for your
king is coming. Rejoice, your salvation
is riding boldly into Jerusalem today.
He goes to be lifted up. Ride on,
ride on in majesty, in lowly pomp ride on to die! He who prepared the world for you and me, he who
has given us all we have and know, even the very breath of our lives heads into
Jerusalem to what we have prepared for him.
Death on a cross.
And yet, those
people cheered him on as he entered. A
large crowd, who had entered for the Passover feast, shouts to Jesus,
“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord!” With those words,
the Son of God rides towards his suffering and death. He boldly rides on the back of a donkey. The crowd watches, smiling and
rejoicing.
How can it
be? The people who today shout “Hosanna”
will shortly shout “Crucify him, crucify him.”
The people will force the hand of their Roman governor to kill their
Jewish King. It doesn’t make sense, how
could they turn so quickly? We judge
them, we criticize them for their change of tone.
And yet, our faces
are in that crowd. We too, today shout
hosannas as Jesus rides into Jerusalem.
We too stand as Jesus rides by.
Jesus, who knows all your sin, who knows all the things you’ve done
wrong. After all he is God. As he rides by, we know that he knows, and we
wonder if he will tell. Will he share my
deepest darkest secrets with those I don’t want to know them? He’s got to die! It’s either him or me, and I would rather it
be him, wouldn’t I? We turn on a dime,
just as those people so long ago did.
Hosanna
Jesus! Get on to that cross, before you
reveal that I struggle with alcohol! For
you know, that I always have a slight buzz, that I can’t quit drinking. You know that it has affected my entire life,
my job, my family, my friends. Go to the
cross Jesus! Go to the cross and die!
Hosanna
Jesus! You know that my family life is
falling apart. You know that there are
difficulties between my wife and I, you know that my brother won’t talk to
me. You know that I have mistreated my
children, you know that I despise my mother and father every day for what they
told me what right and wrong. Go die
Jesus, for I have no place for you here in my life.
Blessed be he who
comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed
is he, even as I am not, as I have despised God’s word. I don’t really care for Bible Study. I don’t really spend time in God’s Word. I have more important things to do. I don’t really believe in all this
Christianity stuff anyways, but I have to be seen in church. I preach sermons to myself, sermons that say
I am not good enough, that I am not forgiven, that I cannot be forgiven. Sermons that do not actually match what God’s
word said. I create my own religion on
my own terms, so die Jesus for being all “holier than me”.
Blessed be the
Lord, the God of Israel! Or so shout our
lips, the same lips that just moments ago were putting down John Doe because of
the situation in his life. So shout the
same lips that curse, swear, that lie and deceive. Blessed be God is our shout one moment, and the
foulest language imaginable is on our lips the next. Sinful dogs that we are – so die Jesus!
We murder! We steal!
We lie! We covet! And Jesus does none of it! So go on Jesus and die! Go to the cross, for you think you are better
than we are! You think you can control
our lives here and now. You aren’t the
God I want, you aren’t the God I create for myself. So go and die! Suffer!
Bleed! Thirst! Go and do it, for I do not want to, and it is
really what I deserve. For it is I lord
that am guilty, not you. It is I who
deserve punishment by my fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault. And you Lord Jesus go where I dare not, to
die for my sin. Ride on, ride on to die.
And Jesus
does. Today, dear friends, he rides past
us, knowing our sin and guilt. Today he
rides on, knowing our pain and suffering, and still he rides boldly on. He carries the sin of those who rides
past. He carries the sin of those who in
a few days will not shout, “Hosanna!” but “Crucify him!” He carries the sin of you, of me, even as he
knows you will turn on him. He knows it,
and he will not turn aside from it. He
won’t forget it, but he will die for it.
And he does all of this in your place, for you, for your
forgiveness. The death you deserve,
today Jesus rides into Jerusalem to deal with.
This most holy
week, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who,
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a
thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by
taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in
human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death, even death on a cross. And
all of this is for you.
Dear friends, now
is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be
cast out. No longer will you be slave to
sin. No longer can you give into the
horrible way of the world. Satan does
not rule you today, nor will he ever again.
He is weak, he is destroyed, he is defeated forever. For Christ has shed his blood on the
cross. And so we rightly shout, “Hosanna
Jesus! Hosanna to the king, he rides on
to die for the sins of the world. To be
lifted up. To take away my sin! Hosanna! Blessed are you Jesus”
Christ goes to
die, and he does it for you. He goes to
forgive your sin, to take it away as far as the east is from the west. On Friday, it is finished. On the cross, you are forgiven. Jesus rides in to shout, “Father forgive
them, for they know not what they do.”
Ride on, Ride on in majesty, in lowly pomp ride on to die. O Christ, they triumphs now begin, o’er
captive death and conquered sin.
Amen.
