PREACHING THE LECTIONARY: THE McGREGOR PAGE
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Passover/Palm Sunday
April 13, 2003
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Philippians 2:5-11
Mark 11:1-11 or John 12:12-16
This Cloak for My King
What a strange parade. It has no climax. Jesus arrives at the temple and nothing. The hour is late, and he turns around and leaves. In what sense is this a "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem? When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers entered the city after the Superbowl, they had a parade ending with greeting and congratulations by the leaders of the people. Mark gives us the impression that there was no one at all to meet Jesus at the temple. Where were his opponents? "Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me." (Isaiah 50:8) Not only did he not have any official greeting, he had no recognition at all. Was it because no one knew he was coming? There was enough advance notice for the common people to go to the fields and gather branches. "Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields." (Mk 11:8) Was this a media event designed to catch the eye of all who would view it through the telling of the Gospel, but not for the city of Jerusalem on that day. Or, was it a "sign" after the manner of the Gospel of John? In either case, it is appropriate for us to have the children come in with the palms at the beginning of the worship service and then turn quickly to the somber business of the rejection and execution of Jesus.
Although Jesus' symbolic entry was not a triumphal entry for the city of Jerusalem, it was a triumphal entry for the ones who laid the branches and their cloaks on the street. These were not the class of people who had more than one cloak. It was their only cloak they were putting beneath the feet of the colt for Jesus' sake, in order to say, "You may not be the king to the rest of Jerusalem, but you are the king to me." ["Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." (Zechariah 9:9)] So, it is the daughter of Zion and not the whole family.
The School Board has decided to do away with baccalaureate. I asked a friend who was distressed by the decision, "Do you think we Christians are just throwing in the towel?" Jesus isn't turned away at the outskirts of our society, but officials are increasingly loath to meet him in the city center. So, the king is welcomed by a sideshow. "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited..." (Phil 2:5-6) The king who shuns the palace is properly honored by a humble sideshow. One of the features of the sideshow is that it is more accessible to the poor. There is a big show going on to which the king is not invited, but then, neither are most of us. As it turns out, however, only this sideshow has a future. Who remembers the weighty matters being decided in the power centers of Jerusalem in the middle of the first century? But every Christian understands and appreciates the heart of the one who took off his cloak to say, "Jesus is my king."
Roland McGregor, Pastor
Asbury United Methodist Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
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