April 13, 2003 - Palm/Passion Sunday
Mark 14:1-15:47
    NRSV KJV CEV

“Why Palm and Passion?”

What do Hosanna to the Son of David!” and “Crucify him!  Crucify him!” have in common?  Isn’t Palm Sunday all about Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the crucifixion reserved just for Good Friday?  Why wave palm fronds and read the account of our Lord’s Passion all in the same service – why palm and passion?  Those questions have very likely been on your minds since we gathered on Ridge Court and processed into worship this morning.  Let me, briefly, try to answer them.

Palm Sunday is about anticipation.  What we remember today are the events which foreshadow the story of the week to come.  We come at these events like people who have jumped to the back of a mystery novel, knowing full well what’s going to happen as the story unfolds.  Even though we know that the ‘good guy’ is going to win in the end, still we’re caught-up in the action at the moment.  I’m reminded of those wonderful Friday nights when my Dad would let me stay up to watch “Sammy Terry’s Horror Theatre” with him.  We’d be watching one of those classic black and white horror films like Frankenstein or Dracula and the action would begin to get tense and I’d start to fidget.  Even though I knew how it was going to come out, I’d jump off of the couch and run into the dining room, peeking around the corner as it happened.  I knew good would triumph …I was just so caught up in it that I couldn’t watch it full on.  Palm Sunday, Holy Week is like that; we know what’s going to happen, but the sheer magnitude of the story overwhelms us.

What is more, the story continues in the lives of people every day.  The drama of triumph and tragedy is unfolding, as we speak, on the streets of Baghdad and Basra, even in Jerusalem itself.  Triumph and tragedy is unfolding in Africa, Bosnia, and Chechnya, on the streets of Milwaukee, and in homes here in Wauwatosa.  As we worship, triumph and tragedy is taking place in the lives of people just like you and like me.  We don’t have to read too far in the daily paper, or listen to the news, or pick up a magazine, or even talk to friends and loved ones to realize just how true this is.  All of us have known deep sorrow or disappointment or loss.  Which of us haven’t experienced some sort of betrayal at the hands of a friend?  That’s why Palm and Passion, because the events in Jesus’ life are in our lives.

We worship in this way not just because it was the custom of the ancient Jerusalem church, recorded in the fourth century Travels of the widow Egeria.  Nor do we do this because it’s been the continuing custom of the Coptic liturgy to celebrate with long readings from the Scriptures for meditation.  We do what we do today because there is no triumph without the tragedy of the Cross.  The Passion and the Cross are central to understanding the life and ministry of Jesus, the message of the Christian faith itself, and even our own destiny.

On this Palm/Passion Sunday we see Jesus fulfilling the ancient prophecies of a “son of David” who will come to bring salvation to his people.

On this Palm/Passion Sunday we see Jesus as the “suffering servant” who willingly offers himself up for the sake of others.

On this Palm/Passion Sunday we see Jesus, especially through the eyes of Mark’s Gospel.  Only Mark has the “young man,” the neaniskos in Greek, an enigmatic figure who follows Jesus “wearing nothing but a linen cloth.”  Some speculate that it might, perhaps, have been Mark himself.  Who knows?  Regardless of who this “young man” was one can feel the tension as this fellow approaches Jesus just as he is on his way to the high priest and a sentence of death.  That figure could be any of us who approach the Lord with the same kind of vulnerability that he did.  Perhaps he was convinced that Jesus had the truth, but the reality of the suffering the lay ahead was too much and so he ran.  Maybe his flimsy linen garment was lost as he fled?

The young man’s nakedness can remind us to think of our own lives of faith and our attempts to come to follow Jesus.  All of us, I would venture to say, have made choices, said or done things that have left us as naked spiritually or emotionally as he was when he ran away.  As we go through this week and reflect on this story, we also reflect on ourselves and are called upon, again, to commit ourselves afresh to what we hold to be the truth of who Jesus is.  The story doesn’t change, we know the ending – Jesus is still crucified and still dies.  Yet, how we respond to that story, how it affects who we are, that is forever fresh.

As the noted liturgical scholar Adrian Nocent has written, “The Palm Sunday liturgy thus gives a complete and rounded theological vision of the mystery (i.e. the saving work) of Christ.  It tells us that this mystery is not a mystery of death alone but a mystery of life that triumphs over death.  This vision is important for a proper conception of the spiritual life.”  Triumph turns to tragedy and back to triumph because the triumphant entry into Jerusalem leads from a cross to an empty tomb.

So, we can leave this celebration of Palm and Passion, of triumph and tragedy, with hearts rejoicing, overflowing with gratitude to a God who cares about us, knows us, loves us, and reaches out to us.