Palm Sunday 2015

Palm Sunday 2015 (Mark 15:1-39)

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”.

The Bible is very clear. People want the attributes of God and the blessings of God; but, people do not want the reality of God.

The people who greeted Jesus on Palm Sunday superimposed a set of beliefs and expectations on Jesus. They acclaimed him as the anointed representative of God. The treated him as though he were a king coming to Jerusalem to establish his power and authority. Sadly, they looked right through him and past him and missed who he was. They  missed the reality of Christ through fear.

Some people feared that Jesus would succeed in becoming the new King of Israel. For them, this meant the violent overthrow and persecution of the current religious and political authorities.

Other people feared that Jesus would try and fail to become the new King. In the ensuing political chaos of that failure, the Romans would step in to restore order. They would kill many people and install a new government more capable of maintaining order.

The Temple priests, the Sanhedrin, King Herod all feared that whether Jesus succeeded or failed he would destroy their wealth and power. They judged his motives and his methods by their own beliefs and behavior. Their solution to this problem was the final solution. From the moment Jesus entered Jerusalem they looked for the opportune moment to kill him.

They also knew that they just couldn’t assassinate him. They did not want a martyr to inspire revolution. They needed to discredit Jesus, humiliate him, and kill him in such a way that even Jesus’ more ardent followers would see this as evidence that Jesus failed in every respect. They wanted to be sure that everyone would understand that God himself had abandoned Jesus and cursed him.

The enemies of Jesus and the followers of Jesus shared a common misunderstanding about God. They all believed that God is power. They could not imagine that God is love. That teaching, dating back to Moses, made no sense to any of them.

Because everyone, with two possible exceptions, believed that God was power, everyone lived within the context of a belief system that rested on the foundation of fear. Jesus knew this. He knew it by simple observation of the human condition as he grew up. He knew this from studying the comments and experiences of Moses and the prophets. He knew that there was no political, social, economic or religious solution to the fear that people lived with and that the religious and political authorities cultivated.

The divine presence of God in Christ triggered a reaction of fear that could only result in the crucifixion. Jesus certainly did not want to experience the torture and death people were very willing to inflict on him. After all, this was a society where people used torture and death as a legitimate form of social control. It was a society that enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering as a form of entertainment.

Jesus knew that people wanted God to give them certain things in life but the one thing they did not want was the personal relationship God offered them. The people in Jesus’ time used religion to avoid God. They used the outward and visible signs of law and ritual to hide from God. People in our time who say they are spiritual but not religious do the same.

People hide from God in many ways. God finds us in the very depths of our fears.

The co-eternal Beloved Son of God came to earth to resolve this problem. God the Father created the universe, our planet, our species and each of us by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the pattern of the Son. That pattern is steadfast holy love. That pattern is an active dynamic creative set of personal relationships.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the reaction of a species lost in separation from God and governed by fear. On the cross, Jesus allows us as a species to vent our anger, fear and rebellion against him so he can experience it and transform it. There is no external institutional or individual solution to the problem of separation, sin and death. The only solution is the Way of transformation Jesus experienced and now offers as a gift.

The Hosannas of Palm Sunday were based on a lie. That lie is that God is power. That lie is that God will reward the righteous who believe the right things and do the right things. That lie is that God authorizes the righteous to destroy the unrighteous. That lie forms the human soul in fear and brings forth anger, hatred and condemnation. That lie perpetuates separation from God, other people and the essence of who God created us to be.

The truth is a person. The truth is Jesus Christ. The truth is that Jesus is indeed the one who comes in the name of the Lord. His name among human beings is “Savior”. He saves us from separation, fear, sin and death. His name in Heaven is “The Beloved”. He saves us by transforming fear into faith through the power of eternal love.

Palm Sunday reminds us that we miss the real presence of the Divine when we allow fear to fill our minds and define our souls. We can say the right words and claim the proper beliefs and still miss the blessing. The blessing is the personal friendship God the Father offers us in God the Son by the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

Listen to the words of Holy Scripture. Enter into the real presence of the divine in the blessed sacrament of the altar. Ask the Holy Spirit to transform your thoughts, emotions and will by the power of divine love in Jesus Christ. This is why Jesus came. This is why Jesus died. This is why Jesus rose from the dead. Heed the warning signs of fear eroding faith. Receive the gift of transforming life giving love in Jesus Christ.